I have heard folks use this term all of my life… there are reports all over of folks that love June apples.
Technically they are best when picked on the 4th of July… but if u want sour power you eat them in June. Much later than 4th of July and they rot.
Cliff got it right on his description- from what i remember.
June Apple - AKA- Early Transparent- pale-yellow skin that matches the flesh. Crisp, light and sweet – makes the ultimate home-cooked applesauce., circa 1870. Cold-hardy. Ripens in June to July is known as Antonovka an Antique variety originates from Russia.
This part isnt accurate, to my knowledge. Both are from Russia. Both come relatively true from seed. Antanovka is a fall apple. Its a bit similar in appearance, but gets a red blush on it. Its hard and very tart. Antanovka was bred the infamous Ivan Michurin, I believe, and he is remembered in part for bringing apples to the coldest parts of Russia
Considering that here in Alaska June is when all of my trees are just starting to flower up…
Tart and early varieties do not go hand in hand. As I said trees here start super late and the season ends in the first week of October, so just about every tree we grow is an early variety. There are plenty of sub tart early apples out there.
We do have an issue where some of the best hard cider varieties are late season but you can still find some good ones to compensate.
June apples are mostly an Appalachian thing… as far as i can tell.
More sophisticated places would likely want a Granny Smith.
My memories make sense… we were on summer break from school and the apples were perfect eating in mid June.
Riding your bike or spending a weekend with other boys those apples would fill up sacks and we would eat the heck out of them… Some boys got stomach aches and pooped.
A good kid would bring a couple of pokes of them to their mom and she would fry up a big iron skillet of pork chops and biscuits. Fry the apples up in the pork chop grease and sugar and vanilla.
The number one reason why June apples are disappearing is because supply chains keep all sorts of apple available year around. Yellow transparent is a fine June apple, slightly acidic, sweet, not tart at all, but in the marketplace it can compete with say Honey Crisp or Fuji, which through the magic of refrigeration and worldwide transport is available nowhere near when it is ripening in your area.
If you are growing your own produce and you want a June apple there are sweet options available.
What are your top early varieties? There are some transparent crosses available. ‘Lodi’ sounds like it might be good. I like ‘mantet’. Some of the better summer apples can hang for a long time and sweeten up. ‘Rambo’ is one. I have another that cane labeled as ‘summer red’, not sure thats the proper name (probably not). Its ready in early August but hangs through mid-september and gets sweeter and redder. Those types are good for home production since you dont have to deal with them all in a go.
There are early apples called May apples…also one called ‘Horse’ apple.
I remember getting bushels of ‘horse apples’ for my horses and to be honest they were pretty danged good. I havent seen them since i was a kid though. Was sold at the local feed store. May have been apples with worms and stuff that were unsellable… i dont remember. I do know that we ate them and also there was some horse feed with molasses in it that tasted good…
Probably one of the best articles I’ve read about “classic” summer apples that several generations ago had easy access to is;
Choice Summer Apples by U.P. Hedrick It was published in - The Garden Magazine -1915
Maybe still on the web?
Lodi and Yellow transparent are very similar tasting apples. Yellow Transparent makes the best applesauce in the world. I think Lodi is a cross of Yellow Transparent. I’m growing yellow transparent on an upright espalier. Apparently it is tip bearing or semi tip bearing. I’m hoping to get it to fruit in 2025.
We have no June apples here, the earliest apples ripen mid-July. Here are my ripening notes from last year (2022).
July:
11 - 25 Roter Astrachan apple
20 - 21 Yellow Transparent apple
21 First Pfirsichroter Sommerapfel (last not recorded)
25 First Piros apple, propably for two weeks (not recorded)
So if yellow transparent is a june apple for you, Red Astrachan should be one too. Piros is the first apple on this list that keeps somewhat, all others are best eaten immediately.
about 90% of the old apple trees around here are yellow transparent or a seedling of them. it was one of the few apples that could survive and fruit here. most of my generation and older were raised on these apples. we would start to eat them when they were still light green and hard. i still consider them the best in pies and applesauce. we used to can 15-20 gal. of applesauce every summer from wild forged ones around here. its been thought that the original trees were brought here with the French missionaries coming from Quebec. they ripen mid to late july here.
we would go trout fishing in the brooks as kids this time of year and on our way back on our bikes, there was a big y. transparent tree near the road in a field. we would eat the hell out of them because we were so thirsty. got the runs afterward every time but we kept doing it every year. a well grown y. transparent has waxy, dark green leaves which accentuates the yellow fruits color. it’s a quite beautiful tree.
