June apple opinions

One would hope that would be enough. Good luck!

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the yellow transparent is a great early sauce and pie apple and is naturalized around here. i make a lot of sauce from apples i find along old farmland. theyā€™re ready to pick up here by mid july and are cold hardy to -40f.

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I donā€™t have any Carolina Red June apples yet, but I did buy a tree this year on dwarf stock.
I have several early varieties bearing a few fruits each on a multi graft tree, (Pristine 6, Summer Rose 6ish, Williams Pride 2, and Kerry Pippin 3) the tree these are grafted on is a Strawberry Parfait, and Iā€™m munching on a tasty little apple that had blushed up some as I write. Once they drop the chickens, ducks and turkeys get them, so Iā€™m thinking of ways I can net around some loaded limbs, and keep them off the ground.
The only Strawberry Parfait apples really sweet now are those with bug damage, but they have a really pleasant flavor, and are juicy, and sweet enough to enjoy every last nibble.
I also have an Irish Peach on Bud9 that I grafted last year, that has two apples sizing up on it. Maybe Iā€™ll get to sample some of these this year. :slight_smile:

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@joleneakamama Hi- How would you rate your Kerry Irish Pippin for taste and ease of growing?

A friend has a tree here thatā€™s not doing well so Iā€™d like to know more about its potential before I give her advice. Thanks.

Steve in Md.

I have a grafted limb on a tree that has given us a few fruits. They were tasty, and fairly early.

No disease issues for us here, but we have had zero problems with the apples. Coddling moth is our only issue.

Strawberry Parfait is tasty too, but the Kerry Pippin was a much firmer apple.

Thanks. Does your location ever get fire blight on anything?

Iā€™m pretty sure Iā€™ve seen some on our young Bartlet pears. Black die back.

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Yes, that makes sense. Bartlett is a blight magnet.

Which apple of the two, Strawberry Parfait & Kerry Pippin, is tastier? And which one keeps better/lasts longer before being too mushy/mealy to enjoy? I am looking for an early apple to plant. I planted a Monark apple two years ago, 2017. No apples yet. I need one to fill in the June/July/ early August time frame.

They are both tasty. Strawberry Parfait is earlier (earliest we grow) and has a different flavor too. Everyone that has tried it here liked it. Some even wanted a tree of that variety!
It is a softer apple and I cannot imagine it would keep long. My husband prefers them before they are completely ripe as they are a little firmer.

Kerry Pippin is another storyā€¦er apple! It tastes good as I recall (only had a few) but is far more dense/crisp. We didnā€™t try to store the few we had, but if a shelf life is a factor Kerry Pippin might be the better choice.

We also liked Williamā€™s Pride, Pristine, Ginger Gold, and Chestnut crab seemed earlyish to me and was delicious!

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TY for your reply. That helps me narrow down my choices.

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Just want to add another vote for Pristine as a very tasty early apple that also seems to be the most no-spray adaptable apple Iā€™ve grown. I wonder if being early helps it simply avoid some of the disease and pest issues that can ruin most of my crop of other apple varieties, even supposedly disease-resistant varieties.

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hey @Chris_in_GA any chance youā€™ve had some hollow log apples since that old post? Iā€™d love to hear about it as far as taste and disease resistance goes, or anything about it!

My Hollow Log tree puts out very small apples. Nice looking small apples. I do spray my trees so they look and taste good just very, very small. Sort of a disappointment as far as usefulness.

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My current early apples are Williams Pride and Early Mac. At my location I usually have some Williams Pride getting ripe in late June-early July.

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I know this is a very late reply, but as no one has responded since it was originally asked, Iā€™ll add my 2 bits.

I was super impressed with Red Astrachan after trying it for the first time last summer off of the neighbours 100 year old trees. I was so impressed that I immediately grafted some chips onto M7 root stock, (which took quite readily).

For such an early apple, Red Astrachan impressed me as a very good tasting apple when eaten fresh off the tree. It is a far better tasting apple than yellow transparent IMO when eaten fresh. It also made the best apple sauce Iā€™ve ever tasted. Iā€™d never been too impressed with most early apples Iā€™d sampled in the past, but Red Astrachan immediately changed my opinion.

My neighbors Red Astrachan trees were all century old full size trees that all produced quite good crops. The size of the apples on each tree seemed quite variable, but the crops were huge. A fair proportion of the apples on each tree were your standard grocery store sized apples. However, a goodly proportion of the apples were very large sized apples, (which made the task of processing much easier). His trees appeared quite healthy for their ages, although the apples did have some scab issues. Scab can be quite a problem, in my area, but Iā€™d say the scab rate was actually quite low on most of their apples.

Red Astrachan is an old variety of heritage apple that originated in Russia. This should make it pretty cold hardy, but Iā€™m not exactly sure of its zone rating. I live in the PNW, so cold hardiness isnā€™t exactly a priority for me, but for others this is essential.

The only negative was that the texture changed quickly a few days after picking. The texture wasnā€™t great for fresh eating at this point, but it still made great sauce. This seems pretty normal anyway for most early varieties, so I wouldnā€™t hold that against it if looking for an early variety of apple.

Two thumbs up IMO for Red Astrachan.