I just put my first ever trees in the ground a little over a month ago. I can not comment on any fruit that I’ve grown because I simply never have. lol I’ve heard that Honeycrisp is not the easiest apple to grow. But I can say that after visiting Sorgels the Honeycrisp apple was the single biggest motivator to get me to start my own mini-orchard. I can only hope that a few years from now I’m able to harvest a nice little bounty of Apples that my family can enjoy. My other main influence was my love for sweet cherries and their high costs. So it seems that even though I’m trying to grow other apple varieties and asian pears, plouts, and a nectaplum I’ve picked a few things that are higher up on the difficulty scale.
Goldrush is also an excellent apple, much easier to grow than HC under most conditions, and keeps better. They are among the best eaters in Dec/ Jan after some cold storage.
I did some grafting this year with Goldrush and Williams Pride. I’ve heard Goldrush is a great apple and I’ve heard Williams Pride is pretty easy to grow and pretty disease resistant.
… In keeping w/ the juice theme of this post, I wanted to mention:
On a visit to Sausalito, I had some single-variety Gravenstein sweet apple cider bottled from somewhere in Calif (probably Sabastopol). It was not better than the complex sweet cider blends available from around here, but it was delicious and something uniquely different, which I enjoyed. It had a nice zip to it.
I was raised on Martinella’s that proudly includes Newtown in its sweet cider mix, or at least did until a few years ago. That is a great sweet cider apple as well.
Martinella’s sparkling cider is my choice of a holiday champagne substitute for kids.
Martinella’s stuff is good and they sell juice from 100% American apples at wallyworld. For whatever reason my kids don’t care for cider, but will drink apple juice all day everyday if we allowed it.
Appleseed, have you offered them the sparkling stuff?
No, in fact I myself have never had their version of it, just their juice. I’ll pick some up next trip. Kids are a odd lot though (at least mine are), they get used to something and they view anything different with suspicion. If they would just give it a try I’m sure they’d like it. I know I would.
Matt, my experience with Goldrush is really so much different than everyone else’s that I have to think it was an anomaly. First, my Goldrush were beautiful, absolutely flawless (I posted photos of them at GW) and yet did not keep AT ALL. My HC on the other hand always stores very, very well.
I, nor anyone in my family like Goldrush, but my mother on the other hand raved about them. Mom still likes HC the best though.
Goldrush is also hailed as a great pie apple (so is HC), but I’ve never used an apple in a pie I disliked more than Goldrush. Admittedly, this may be an unusual preference on my part. Goldrush stays too firm for me in a pie and has an odd and overpowering flavor (reminds me of the odor of citronella candles). HC makes a great pie though imo.
I’m going to give it another year for evaluation. I had a lot of scion wood this year though and fewer places to put it. I looked the way of that tree often while holding my razor knife. It’s going to get one more year to impress me, otherwise it’s going under the knife.
Appleseed, I apologize. You always made mentioned of HC from a nearby commercial orchard- I had no idea you were talking about your own fruit.
By good storage, how many months are you talking about? I can’t imagine that you didn’t go through them quickly given how you rave about every quality of the fruit. Seems to be the only apple you need grow.
Never heard anyone mention it as a good cooking apple before- but then some chefs around here became infatuated with using Fujis in tarts and stuff- yech! But who am I to question the palate of a multi-star celebrity chef? I’m just a dumb farmer.
I side with the English on the definition of a great cooker- must be equal parts hard and tart.
I’ve had HC from everywhere. The local orchard was just my first jaw-dropping, eye-opening experience into just how amazing an apple really could be and part of the reason I got into fruit growing.
There are actually a lot of charts that show it to be a good pie apple, but for those who like the super hard apples that remain very firm in pies it wouldn’t fit the bill.
I intentionally saved some for the purpose of judging it’s keeping abilities and then as I’d mentioned to you before that local orchard was selling them at an Amish store for .79 per pound. I bought 14 lbs. on top of what I grew.
No, I need more apples and especially earlier varieties. I hate buying apples early in the year when we all seem to be wanting them. Hopefully Zestar and William’s Pride will come through in that regard, I strongly suspect they will. In fact, I’m certain of it. They are both my most sought apple experience at this point. Oddly though my recent attention is being directed toward pears and this is looking to my my first harvest from my trees here at this place.
I love the Honey Crisp we get in our stores here in Michigan. The thing I don’t get is some are small red apples and some are huge red and yellow apples. I had some Fuji this winter that were just as good as the honey crisp. They were selling them for two bucks a bag at Meijer’s one week so I bought four bags! This will be my first year getting a honey Crisp crop too. I guess I will figure out just how hard they are to grow. I was thinking of just bagging them and skipping the spray.
I don’t understand the size difference either and if I had my way I’d prefer the smaller apples. They are definitely all honeycrisp though. We’ve discussed that here before and I don’t know how they accomplish the smaller apples. I let mine go one year unthinned hoping to reduce the size, but they just got huge anyway. So huge and heavy they broke the entire central leader out of the tree. Lesson learned.
Johnny, Honeycrisp is definitely not a good candidate for no spray. In fact, here no apple is, but HC will be garbage without it sooner than the average apple. Everything wants a bite. PC likes to get after them even when sprayed with weaker sprays.
I wouldn’t recommend the no spray approach…especially on HC.
Alan is right about HC, one bite or sting and it rots very quickly. With regular sprays though even with Triazicide you will produce market quality stuff fairly easily.
Just some of last years HC harvest. These were from a single 3rd year tree on M106. This tree yielded about 70-80 lbs, total I guess, with about 2/3 of that being perfect and blemish free. Spray was primarily Triazicide and sulfur, earliest spray fungicide was Chlorothalonil followed by two later Myclo sprays. otherwise all sulfur. All always combined with insecticide which was always Triazicide except for two Carbaryl sprays at JB time.
Sulfur sure makes your clothes and hands stink, but it’s safe enough to eat (well sorta) and certainly pays huge dividends. IMO for the low impact / organic guys it’s an absolute must. It’s cheap too.
Notice the foliage in this photo. This was taken 9/22/14 and is typical of Honeycrisp foliage late in the year. It begins to get a bit ratty by seasons end. Some due to chlorosis which is normal in HC, and some probably due to the tree focusing so much energy on fruit production I think. I’m hoping Captan 80 may resolve a bit of this. This year my primary insecticide will be Imidan 70 and primary fungicide will be Captan 80 and micronized sulfur in combination. Same thing otherwise, Chloro / Myclo before fruit formation followed by two myclo sprays combined with sulfur.
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You don’t have an issue with cedar apple rust? Captan has no affect on it. Why take out the myclo?
I’m not taking out the use of Myclo. Chloro / Myclo before fruit formation followed by two additional early myclo sprays. Then I’m at max. load for the season. Captan / sulfur for the remainder of the year.
Alan I’m probably also going to give the calcium a try this year just for experimentation’s sake. There is all sorts of Calcium (nitrate and sulfate) available on Ebay in any size from 1 oz. to 50 lbs.
It’s very cheap…I’m thinking about calcium nitrate as I’d get a bit of foliar fertilization along with the calcium. I’m curious though as to whether it can be sprayed in combination with insecticide / fungicide sprays. Not much info. available online about the spraying of it.
I’ll probably just get 1 lb. or something. I do suffer from bitter pit a little and it prevents them from storing as well as they otherwise would. Also unsightly.
Requires more C nitrate than sulfate though.
Apple,
Great apples!
Thanks I will spay the tree. I have the Triazicide.
I’m not a connoisseur of apples or apple juice but there was an older Gravenstein here when we moved in. It seemed like an okay apple, but when I juiced it, I suddenly understood why people still plant Gravensteins! I’ve just this spring grafted several varieties onto it, including Honeycrisp, which I look forward to trying. But I left 75% of the tree as Gravenstein for the juice.