Local farm not far from me.
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i got my early apple trees from Century Farm Orchards.
The Carolina Red June is a tasty little bugger, but the fire blight was an issue for me. Although it is soft, it is much more balanced than most early ripening apples.
Yes, the Lodi is very sour. It makes pretty sauce, but it takes a ton sugar to make it edible.
Horne Creek has quite a list of early apples. One that stands out is Alexander’s Ice Cream.
Have Alexander Ice Cream to graft this year. Chose it over Primate, Hackworth, Aunt Rachel and Hollow Log. Summer apples that ripen over weeks
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no such thing as june ready apples here in z4. the earliest, y. transparent/ lodi starts ripening in the beg of august then its williams pride in mid/ late aug. then zestar in early/ mid sept. y. transparents just finished blooming in mid june here.
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For the NC area, this is the list
Washington Strawberry
Tetofsky
Sweet Bough
Summer Rose
Sops of Wine
Starr
Red Astrachan
May
Lowland Raspberry
Margaret
Henry Clay
Hollow Log
Hightop Sweet
Fanny
Early Strawberry
Early Redbird
Early Harvest
Red June
Atha
Early Ripe
Golden Sweeting
Striped June
Yellow Transparent
Yellow June
July Apples
@Big Horse Creek
Taylor Sweet
Summer Queen
Summer King
Summer Champion (Kincaid)
San Jacinto
Primate
Polly Eades
Parmer
Mrs Bryan
Moyer Spice
Lacy
June Sweeting
July Tart
Horse
July Sweet
Gravenstein
Early Joe
Devine
Cherryville Black
Cauly
Calvin
Bevan’s Favorite
Benham
Aunt Rachel
Summer Pearmain
The following can be had at Horne Creek
Alexander Ice Cream
Amy
Arkansas Beauty
Beecher
Blairmont
Buncombe
Burl
Captain Davis’
Chatham Sweet
Chenango Strawberry
Coble’s Wilder
Enos
Fugate > Worth looking into
Gilmore Sweeting
Hege
Jake’s Seedling
Jim Day
Joe Little
July Delicious > This looks interesting
Kennedy
Lackey
Laurel’s Yellow
Leiby > Russian
Long Stem
Lonnie’s Summer Giant
Maiden Blush
Mary Mckinny
Maryland
Polly Eades
Polly Sweet
Rattle Core
Rusty Coat
Salley Gray
Schumacher
Shell
Sour June
Sie Qa Non
St. Clair
Summer ladyfinger
Summer Rambo
Sunday Sweet’
Vandevere June
White Top
Williams Favorite
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Yellow transparent certainly is not sweet and neither are any of the other Russian influenced heirlooms that I have tried. Have any of you tried ET? I would be surprised if it was what we generally consider a quality eating apple. The earliest apples tend to be foamy and tart but there are countless ones I’ve never tasted, I’m sure.
The earliest sweet apple that most people tend to enjoy eating fresh and raw that I’ve grown is Pristine. When it ripens my stomach is too full of peaches, plums and nectarines to bother with it. Early apples seem more appropriate for Z4 and colder except for those who enjoy apples above every other fruit. I eat enough of them during the cold months.
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I like the Early Russians. But they are fairly tarty if not brisk. Have Medunica to graft this year. Honey Sweet with spice. Hope it works here.
Here are the Early Summer Apples we have settled on:
Alexander Ice Cream
Anna
Atha
Bunkum {not sure we will find it. Not Buncombe}
Dorsett Golden
Gladstone
Hollow Log
Horse
Jim Day
Medunica
San Jacinto
Schumacher
Starr
Summer Row
Then the Late Summer/Early fall sorts:
Appletown Wonder
Blairmont
Chickasaw
Clark
Cranberry of N.Georgia
Disharoon
First and Last
Galarina
Kimrome
King Solomon
Mank’s Codlin
Mrs.Bryan
Park’s Pippin
Paroquet
Pionier
Reverend Wilkes
Scarlet Gala
Sheepnose
Striped Sweeting
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Ended up grabbing Tropic Sweet and Dorsett Golden after a lot of research last year, both are/have flowered already - hopefully a little bit of cold weather doesn’t bother them in particular tomorrow.
when is pristine ripe for you? we put in one last year and I’m curious about how early it will ripen here, we get a lot of fruit in August and September so i planted it to maybe full the gap in July
Early August, as I recall. Maybe just before William’s Pride.
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thank you Alan
i may graft to see. the lag between early small fruit and later glut of stuff, June into July is the worst
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Very interesting thread.. almost the time for early apples…
There was a Yellow Transparent tree at the home I grew up in. I would never categorize them as ‘sweet’. Very much a tart, light-fleshed apple with about a 30 minute harvest window between being slightly crisp and tasting good and going yellow and mealy. I have ‘Lodi’ here, which is YT x Haralson… touted as an ‘improvement’, but it’s just larger… inferior in all other ways, to my thinking.
There is/was a ‘Perrine Giant YT’ (a large-fruited budsport of YT) that Dr. Cummins wrote about, and I was on a search for scionwood, some years ago, but gave up on the search, and now don’t care if I graft or plant another apple…
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Perrine is the only YT that Cummins has. They have trees and scionwood yearly.
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I think the only blessing the South has is growing very early harvested apples. That is why Shell Apple was such a good hit shipping to New York.
The Carolina’s had a raft of July/August apple varieties that often made the way to Northern Markets as eaters. Sheepnose and Schumaker for example.
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Pristine is top notch in my book. A good keeper, too.
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The best early apple i have is Tropic Sweet. Its very good, crunchy, very sweet and tropical aftertaste.
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if i find room for 1 more tree. it will be pristine.
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