True, but these were picked in October, I believe. They might have been a bit early, but not that much. A very attractive apple, I must say. The AB, tho, might have been picked too soon.
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At my location, Oct-Nov is when we harvest the 3rd apple crop. The other two occur in Sping and mid-Summer.
Both the Gordon and the White Winter Pearmain produce 3 crops per year here. In western Rancho PeƱasquitos apples typically produced late Spring and Fall.
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Thatās not a late harvest 
It is highly location-dependent but for me it was wanting a November harvest. GoldRush and Black Limbertwig are around Nov 1, and Pink Lady and Yates (and probably BMLT) are mid-November, in other words hang til hard freeze.
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Those two are ready in mid October at the orchard we frequent. The GR are super tart, and somewhat sweet then, but they get sweeter in storage. The LT donāt improve that much, so maybe they let them be picked too early. Their Pink Lady are ready by early Nov.
We have one GR tree, had one fruit on it last year, but something got it before ripening. I have another that I grafted in a pot, going to plant it out along with 5 others in a month or so.
Scott- did the Brushy Mtn LT go into November to ripen on the tree?
Iām just a few miles from Scott and I picked most of my GoldRush November 13, but left some until December 14. Some were still very green in mid December.
When a commercial orchard harvests apples and when theyāre fully ripe are two different things. I harvest Pink Lady around New Year.
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Iām told Granny Smith is an entirely different apple when grown in Australia. The ones from Washington St. tend to be too green and the best Iāve eaten were left on the tree through an exceptionally warm Nov. in NY.
Fortunately, Pink Lady gets pretty good even without obtaining best quality, but Iām looking forward to eating the first apples from a new strain that supposedly ripens a month earlier. It should be great by Nov., but we shall see.
Not to me- that would always be a spitter, as is anything that doesnāt exceed about 11 brix that calls itself a fruit and grows on a tree. Iāve never had a ripe sweet apple with brix that low (10), have you?
The difference between a Honeycrisp apple with 12.5 brix and 13.5 brix is night and day according to my palate. All the popular sweets I know of tend to get at least that high. Yellow Delicious comes to mind and it is brix that makes the older strains superior to newer ones. I believe that some or lots of russeting is related to higher levels of brix in YD sports and relatives.
Indeed! @subdood_ky_z6b it sounds like your nearby orchard is over-eager by at least couple weeks in harvesting these late varieties.
@PatapscoMike I have picked some of my GRās that late some years, it depends on the year. This last year I had no apples, I removed most of the wood last winter as it was a deer feeding station.
@hambone I think it was early Nov when I lost my last BMLTā¦ the fruits were extremely green then ā¦ not even sure it would have ripened before hard freeze.
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What temperature would you recommend to keep them at? How would you prevent dehydration without encouraging mold growth?
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