I got my first apples (two) from grafts on a CanadianStrawberry tree. The largest full size one dropped August 22, a nice somewhat squatty round apple. I tried it right away but it, unfortunately, wasn’t quite ripe, the seeds only partly brown. The texture was nicely tender and though it was a bit not-yet-ripe tart it was eatable with an interesting flavor touch. A smaller one dropped early September and I put it in the root cellar to eat later - but now I don’t remember what it was like! Hopefully we’ll get more next year.
Carroll is a hardy variety bred in Manitoba, and has had high marks for flavor from others.
I grew Carroll for a while in my beginning days of orcharding, back when I succumbed to advice that I should be growing early ripening varieties. For me it is just too early, needs a cooler climate during its ripening period. Its parent Melba is the same way. Great lively flavor though, good for early season juice blend.
I had a Carroll tree for 7 or 8 years. It was a big beautiful apple and ripened reliably in my short (Winnipeg, Manitoba) growing season. A pic here from a few years ago.
My main beef with it was that the fruit quality was very uneven. Most years, we would get some really good tasting, tree ripened Carroll apples. But an even greater number tended to drop before optimally ripe with seeds not fully dark brown, and the taste mediocre. And some went soft early. My best guess is that this had something to do with ripening in high summer heat. One year I was playing around with protecting them from apple maggot with the small ziplok sandwich bags with the bottom corners cut out. The ones in the sunny part of the tree turned into inedible mush.
I have an aquaintance that runs a nursery in Edmonton AB. He sees a lot of fruit trees and says that Carroll is his favorite apple. Edmonton usually gets less summer heat than we do. So my guess is that it is just a little better suited to his cooler summers.
You are quite a bit south of me but maybe the lakes take the edge off the high summer temps and Carroll will continue to produce a lot of great fruit for you.
Because of the inconsistent quality, I turned my Carroll into a frankentree with 20+ varieties, a number of which I preferred to Carroll. The whole tree mysteriously died this summer. The post-mortem was inconclusive, but I suspect winter damage.
