I just cut down my big ~18 yr old Comise. It didn’t produce much and the fruit wasn’t very good. I’m keeping a smaller tree but just to help pollinate my other pears.
My Bosc fruit is better tasting but not easy to ripen properly.
Not sure if I’ve grown that one but KG is the best of the ones I’ve grown. It’s sweet but again not much flavor.
I only grow pears because I planted them and they produce. If they tasted any worse I’d cut them down. But of what I grow pears are very near the bottom.
Yes, Hudson’s GJ certainly tries to bear fruit in clusters and needs to be thinned aggressively to get good size and quality. I wouldn’t bother with an orchard that fails to thin their fruit.
So what you are really saying is they suck in your part of Texas where no one even attempts to grow them commercially.
Bosc is a FB magnet here and psyla likes it also, but at some sites near me it does fine and is a popular pear for Hudson Valley commercial growers. Very high sugar and stores well. I like it, but it’s not worth growing on my property because I have to spray too many times to control psyla. .
They are the only place I’ve found that grows ashmeads kernel. They also grow caville blanc, which are nice most years. It’s worth one trip each year.
It bothers me more that they often open trees for picking before they are fully ripe. But it’s still worth one trip.
We have more options here, although I don’t know how many orchards grow a lot of heirlooms- there’s one about 90 minutes north of me clients have told me about. There used to be growers that came to NYC with some heirlooms, but not a wide range back when I lived in Manhattan. I also used to see some at farmers markets near where I live now when I first came here, but I don’t do much shopping for fruit these days.
Thinning is tricky chemically and even with chemicals usually requires quite a piece of expensive labor to finish the job- yet it is considered essential for most commercial growers.
I thin more than they do and generally my peaches, apples and plums are larger than what you will see in stores- this year some have looked to be on steroids thanks to ground that has been constantly wet. .
What an apple “is for” can be a ferociously contestable issue. Was reading one of the reviews list on Howgate Wonder and the thorns thrown at it was amazing. It is not an eating apple. It is not a juice/cider apple. It’s a terrible cooking apple…lol
In truth it does all those thing very well in different stages of storing. It IS Used by one of the finest UK juice firms. It is a great apple for mincing. In January it is sweet and tender to offer a mild refreshing juicy break.
No it is not some pop your eyes thing. It is a work a day Jack of many trades. Reliable. Good cropper.
Good points. Often, it’s the inexperienced that poo-poo old timey varieties that may not be able to stand up to Honeycrisp or RD or YD or Gala for instant gratification. But, if you’re ambitious enough to do something besides grab the shiniest fruit and chomp it…many other apples come into consideration.
Good to see that about Howgate. I’m still waiting for mine to get some growth so it will bloom.
Since getting only 10 apples of Twenty Ounce three years ago (the guy hasn’t responded to my calls ever since) I haven’t had the pleasure of baking with it. Eating such a big apple fresh (yeah, I did, shamelessly) was no chore for me, but I often shared one with the Better Half.
The flavor was amped apple & juiciness would require a bit of flour in a pie to keep it from boiling over. I’d do it in a heartbeat if given the chance again.
I labored mulling over which really large apples I’d grow. In the end I went on a hunch Howgate and Appletown would be a better fit for my area. And Twenty Once and King of Thompkins both lost. Originally I also tossed Peasgood so it would not mess with having Paroquet growing. I also kept Striped Beefing. I also chose Meyers Limbertwig for a reliable proven workhorse; and that can be very large too. And now Peasgood re-appeared on my grin choices. I guess I will place Peasgood and Paroquet on opposite sides of the orchard.
No one around here is growing Howgate Wonder. I got the scion from the late Nick Botner & grafted it to MM111 for a dry land orchard. Howgate has so many strengths I felt compelled to try it: partially self fertile, several disease resistances including bitter pit (take that, Honeycrisp!) & large fruit that might be worth growing. Who can tell until it is tried?
Agreed. It’s portly tall statue won me over in the end. Not one of those fat squatted oafs…lol
The first thing to try is tried and true. Once your orchard is bearing all the fruit you need then experiment, but there is usually a reason apples fall out of favor. Sometimes that reason might not be a factor for you, such as King David’s small size, which doesn’t phase me at all. However, I would start with the apples that were most popular for baking in the 19th century, such as Rhode Island Greening. It is dry with high flavor and good size when properly thinned. Not so dry that it isn’t a good eating apple when fully ripe (yellow). N. Spy is bigger, more prone to rot and a lot juicier. It is exceedingly slow to bear on free standing root stocks and difficult for beginners to handle as far as training and pruning goes and not just because it is a vigorous and upright grower. Shoots need to be managed skillfully to get reasonably consistent cropping.
I like Thompson’s King as an eating apple and so do my squirrels. At some sites it is a shy bearer and it needs truly full sun to be productive by my experience. However it is quite juicy and very prone to water core. I don’t think of it as a baking apple but it’s a delicious late Sept apple here.
Good idea for the suggestion of starting off with the tried and true trees and then experimenting with other things. That is what I did when I started my orchard. I took my family to about 4 different local orchards and we did a taste test and also looked at all the apples they had. I figured if the local orchards could grow certain varieties there was a pretty good chance I could grow them in my orchard. I started off with those expanded my " wish list" of apples after that. Some pretty good results and of course some ones not so good.
You are right about the Northern Spy. It is a great apple and a nice sized tree. Mine is now getting out hand and I really need to look at doing some major pruning back to get rid of a lot of excess branching and the main central branch. Always later…and later ends up being " next year" .
Early summer can be a good time to assert discipline on an unruly tree- about mid-spring is even better, with follow up. With N.Spy you need to know that the least vigorous annual shoots are where most of your crop will be- but not the following year- the year after. That makes it tricky.
The majority of apple varieties bear their best apples on 2nd year wood, but I’ve never seen much in the literature that makes this clear- perhaps because there are several exceptions- notably tip bearers that give you the best apples on last year’s shoots.
If you aren’t aware of such differences they are difficult to notice.
Good info. I put little strips of colored tape on the branches and areas I think need to come out and then look at them again in a few days to make sure that is really want to cut.
Northern Spy puts out some nice large tasty apples. That is an apple I am glad I have in my orchard.
I’m not positive I’ve ever eaten a N. Spy.
Prairie Spy I have eaten. One of lots of ‘good apples’.
Can’t think of anyone I’ve ever observed raising Northern Spy…and never have seen it for sale at a market.
My understanding it’s excellent for cooking and keeping…and on the sour side for eating fresh.
Mollie’s Delicious was the largest apple we would pick at a big orchard that have frequented over the years. It is a early variety, and had pretty good flavor and texture despite its size.
At one grafting class a few years ago I was able to get a MD scion and grafted it onto M7. The graft took and I later put it in a 3 gallon pot. It got planted out in March of '22, and I think it’s still alive, altho I lost the tag between it and an Enterprise. One of those transplants didn’t survive, so I’m not sure which tree I have now. It’s about 7ft tall now, but hasn’t bloomed yet. Guess I’ll find out in a few years which one it is, it’ll be easy to tell if it’s an MD (yellowish-red) or Enterprise (dark red/purple).
I skimmed over most of the posts on here but I didn’t see any mention of Mutsu, or Crispin, which is also grown in that same orchard, and is very large, but we’ve never tried one. Supposed to be pretty good also.
BTW both of these are Golden Delicious descendants.
I’ll put a vote in for Mutsu - can get bigger than a softball and taste great.
Mutsu and Mollies…I ate both over 30 years ago for the first time.
Mollies Delicious impressed me compared to Summer Champion.
But both fell short of Red Delicious. If you’d not had an apple since last year, they all passed the taste test I guess.
As for Mutsu, it’s like a Golden Delicious and a dash of lemon juice.
I mention all 3 as they’re bigger than normal, but not huge apples.
Mutsu, Mollies, Summer Champion.