Years ago I used to work on an orchard in the Okanagan. The owner’s dad would drive by for our coffee breaks. We’d call him Opa. He was a retired Dutch orchardists who could never stay away, he loved farming so much. Opa was always a big proponent of the value of small apples. 88’s had their place, but he always thought that big apples packed in a kids lunch would end up in the trash partially eaten. Opa passed away last year and didn’t get to see some of the new apple marketing happening around here for the small apples. Recently we started getting Rock It bag’s in the grocery store.
Recently I saw these bags of small apples from one of the main grocery stores around here.
Opa would have loved seeing this new apple marketing.
What do you think of the small apple movement?
I would love to hear some great apple recommendations for some backyard trees which are on the small size. Kinderkrisp comes to mind, same with frostbite, and Wickson. What are your stand out small to medium apple suggestions?
Wickson is really small, probably too small for this application. Eden is similar but larger. Crimson gold, another etter variety probably fits the bill for a lunchbox apple. Both Eden and Crimson gold are very rare. Full trees can be had from Trees of Antiquity. I have scions of both.
Crimson Gold is strange. Maple Valley’s is a chunky size medium apple. I think many places who have “Crimson’s Gold” have some other Etter Apple. Possibly the USDA one that has been found not the true type.
I see here “Bluey”{the cartoon} is selling a small apple. Sounds like the varieties are mixed.
Our girls love the new Rave apples; more medium’ish.
Yates , Hall and Garden Royal all make great flavorful kid apples.
I just tried Jade (another Etter “crab”) and was thinking it would be perfect for this sort of market. It’s not crab-sized for me, very much a small apple. It’s got a very refreshing taste but not as wild tasting as most of the other Etter crabs. Very much in the Golden Delicious family of flavors but more complex than most.
I’m convinced a lot of people are propagating Wickson as Crimson Gold. There’s a commercial orchard here in California that sells CG large scale but they’re so similar to Wickson, though maybe an over-irrigated and picked-too-early Wickson. I recently tasted a Crimson Gold at a local orchard and it was a small apple with a completely different flavor profile.
I love to see a trend towards smaller apples. Nearly two decades ago I first got hooked on them with these guys:
I loved that they were small enough that I wasn’t having to make a big commitment. If one wasn’t enough then I could enjoy a second fruit afterwards. I was disappointed when the membership warehouse store stopped carrying them.
For years I’ve felt that the trend towards breeding larger fruits resulted in losing flavor characteristics. It didn’t take much for me to see the awesomeness in growing a Clark’s Crabapple and helping to change that trend.
I went through this thread on the best tasting crab apples sometime in early October, and because I am a crazy weird data nerd, I tallied the times certain cultivars were mentioned. as they are all crab apples, they are all likely small so they might be worth looking into. there have been additional comments added to that thread after I put this together, so this table doesn’t capture all the content. take it with a grain of salt.
Cultivar
Notes
Times it was mentioned in a positive way
Wickson
hard fleshed - bug resistant
6
Chestnut
PC Magnet
5
Centennial
no acidity
4
Trailman
3
Almata
red-fleshed - doesn’t store well
2
Narrangansett crab
2
Kerr
hard fleshed - bug resistant
1
Bastian Orange
1
Callaway
1
Whitney
1
I personally don’t grow apples, but I find as far as size is concerned I prefer something smaller to medium size. while I love a big mutsu, they can be hard to eat whole and can hurt my jaw.
I have scionwood of butterball and yates on order from 39th parallel, and I might be getting my hands on some candy crab scion wood over the winter too for grafting to a wild crabapple. hopefully in a few years I could give some data on those from my own personal experience.
There is a convenience store chain around here that sells the “Rockit” apples in a little plastic sleeve of maybe 3 or 4 apples. I had never seen apples sold in plastic sleeve. Like a sleeve of Christmas tree bulbs.
The apples come in a harder plastic tube. They have them standing up on their end. I had a photo of them a while back but I did not think anyone else would have wanted to see them. If they still have some I will take a photo of them. They are definitely smaller sized apples especially for kids lunches.
