I am wondering if anyone is growing this apple, sold exclusively in the states (to my knowledge) by Queener Farms in OR. I have emailed the owner several times and she’s given me the following descriptions:
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"Devonshire Crimson Queen is extremely rare in the U.S. We adore these apples as they are delicious, early, disease resistant and seem unmolested by insects. These apples start out fairly sharp and get sweeter as they sit. Late in their season, or after a month or storage, they have a distinct berry flavor. On the tree they will look as though they range in color from solid red to totally green. Their season stretches over several weeks and so we start out picking only the solid red and come back every few days to pick just those. Only in the last pickings should those less red apples be harvested. When these are deepest red, especially in cooler seasons when they can ripen slowly, they will have lovely dark pink blush inside the flesh that starts near the skin and can continue all the way to the core. Their strawberry flavors get stronger later in their season and after storage. These apples have been fabulous every single season regardless of new insects, hail, heat waves, massive rain and any other weather anomaly we’ve experienced. Turn red when ripe, pick when red & leave green ones.
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· “The Devonshire have handled some of the most insane weather, heat dome with temps at 117 in 2021, nearby forest fire in 2020, seriously crazy amounts of rain, wet weather during bloom, years with massive scab outbreaks etc etc and through them all they’ve given me perfect, lovely, delicious apples in abundance. Since they have that quality of ripening over several weeks, and turning red only when ripe, they’re a great homestead apple. The Devonshires are so amazing. None of the literature has any information on their pollination group but I would put them pretty close to the middle of our bloom season. They also are one of those that blooms over a longer period so I suspect lots of apples overlap with them at some point. They also ripen over time. We often harvest them for around six weeks. Since they don’t turn red until they are ripe it’s easy to harvest them. We just pick the red ones and leave the green ones. We start harvesting them in mid-August so there should be no problem with them ripening in your location, they don’t need a long season.” – Jeannie at Queener Farm
