Thanks Steve. I have used that and it is extremely thorough. I’m not sure about how to answer a lot of the questions but so far it hasn’t given me a clear answer either.
@mamuang thanks for that tip. I may well reach out to him but I’m about to just give up!
@snowflake THanks again, John. I have to say that those last 2 photos look closer than anything else I have seen…in fact they seem dead on. But even when I polish mine, I’ve not seen any with the color of red shown in your first photo- though mine do shine up well like that and they may still get to a deeper red. Right now, if I had to pick, and I’d say you have ID’ed my apple, but there is still some doubt when I look at other on-line photos of the Haralson. This is incredibly frustrating.
Thanks to everyone who has tried to help, some of which I haven’t commented on but appreciated nevertheless.
This whole thing has been a real lesson for me. Knowing mistakes get made from ALL nursery vendors from time to time, and seeing how different the same variety of apple can look in different photos, I just don’t know how anyone really an be completely confident that you have the apple you think you do!!! Of course there are some that are very obvious (Granny Smith, Red Delish, etc) but unless an apple is very distinct, this has made me question almost every apple I have now and perhaps no one can ever be sure about some of your/our apples. Oh well. This is a really good apple and I’m very happy with it so I’m not sure it matters as much as I’m thinking it does. Thanks again.
thecityman, don’t give up…I’ve had this tree and I’ve asked the computer per hambone suggestion and I’ve asked on here verbally…and I still have an apple I’m not positive about.
Closest we came to was “King David”. (Well, I grafted King David…so will have the two apples to compare side by side one of these days…that’s the best advice I know…when you’ve reached the best suggestion, buy that tree and grow them side by side!)
If the online ID key reduced the candidates to say a list of ten you can over time figure out which one it is. Getting down to a few possibilities is the key.
@Snowflake 's Haralson apple sound different than mine which doesn’t sound much like thecityman’s apple, which looks quite interesting! Some similarities in skin texture though. My Haralson’s are medium size, not large, definitely on the tart side, no orange and not that russeting on the top. A later storage apple. But then I’m in a much different climate, too.There are several threads with photos of Haralson, many much redder than mine. Here’s mine. Sue
Thank you so much. This is about the 3rd time on this post I have been sure someone had identified my apple! haha. But those fir 3 you posted- which are Canadian Strawberry if I understand you correctly, are the closest photos I’ve seen and pretty much look dead on to be the same. That being said, since I bought this tree from a big box store (Tractor Supply) I really expected it would be more of a mainstream, common apple since that is what the big box stores usually carry. But of course you never know when a lazy tree harvester just fills out the end of an order with whatever is closest, or when an order meant for one place gets mixed into another and so on.
BTW…the reason I’ve been so determined to find what this is, aside from plain curiousity, is that of the 8 different apples I harvested this year, this was by far everyone’s favorite. I gave apples to probably 35 people this year and I can honestly say that 30 of them liked this one the best of all. That includes me, btw! Just a wonderful apple no matter what it is.
It also ended up having some other interesting traits. For example, when it first started ripening it did drop a fair number of apples as they got quite ripe (but as a % not really that many) but I left quite a few on the tree just to see what happened and believe it or not they ARE STILL HANGING!!! I picked the first ripe ones around August 25 and I still have quite a few apples on that tree on October 14! I picked one yesterday and it was still very crisp and good. Most of my other apples drop everything within about 3 weeks if I don’t pick them. I also love these for cooking. They don’t fall apart or turn into apple sauce like some apples that really cook up, but at the same time they do get really soft when cooked. I guess its personal preference, but I’m not a big fan of the apples that stay really firm and almost even a little crunchy after cooking, and I don’t like to make apple sauce when trying to make fried apples. These are in between those extremes and perfect.
I enjoy just leaving these apples whole and cutting the core out from above, then filling them with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon and putting them in a small bowl with a little water- then microwaving them about 6-8 minutes. Such a simple way to have an amazingly good cooked applel!
Glad to help. Look up Canadian Strawberry on this forum… It does seem odd that you’d get this from Tractor Supply, but who knows. After I saw all the pictures, I thought that looks like a Canadian Strawberry to me. I’m a bit new to growing my own fruits so I wasn’t positive about the ID. My first year with fruit on this tree and I’m pretty happy with them. When I thought they were really close to perfectly ripe, some critter started eating the few apples I had, so I harvested all “13” of them. Still have a few in the fridge. The winter prunings from this small tree will be top priority for grafting this spring onto Bud 9 root stock and propagated cuttings. I WANT MORE ; - )
I don’t have a microwave, but that sounds like a great recipe. I think my Mother used to make something similar but she added raisins in there too and I’m sure she used typical pie apples.
