We are in the midst of a genuine east coast drought by our humid standards and meaningful rain has disappeared for about the last 60 days- and it was pretty dry for a few weeks before that.
I had forgotten how good William’s Pride can be and yesterday I tasted the best Liberty I’ve ever eaten. I also tasted the best Spitz I ever tasted and it was much better than the liberty to my palate, but I almost finished eating the Liberty when I was only intending to sample it.
The point is that we spend a lot of time here telling other people what varieties we like the best without even realizing how much the seasons weather may be affecting the quality.
Tastes are subjective, but most people like fruit with more sugar or higher brix, at least up to 16% for peaches, pears, J. plums and apples, and 20% for Euro. plums.
When Spitz apples top 20% here (and they are the only heirloom I grow that consistently does that in dry seasons) I can be sure that most who taste it will want a tree- as reliably as a Honey Crisp with brix above about 15%. Even my helper who loves apples like Fuji is favorably impressed with Sptiz this year, and I have to wonder why the literature talks about it being so tart off he tree- that’s a myth even on less favorable years.
So you can probably take my evaluations this year with a grain of salt- unless you live in the west and can grow the varieties I rave about.
East coast growers, let us know about any apples you grow that exceed 20% brix. .
I assume you mean by “Spitz” Esopus Spitzenburg? Do you have any problems growing it?
I got one this year and it foundered all summer with almost no growth and various stages of powdery mildew which I could not not shake with either sulfur or pristine.
Then we get rain in the beginning of September and it grows 6 inches… I don’t know if it will harden off in time. Hope so, but if we get an early freeze it might not.
Earlier this week I harvested a bunch of Liberties that seemed to want to come off of the tree, but they weren’t really ready: had some greenish tint to the flesh, and not very much flavor. Today I found a windfall and ate it and it was quite good -the difference in just a couple of weeks surprised me. We’ve had an unusually cool and wet summer, and now that fall’s here it feels like we’re going straight into summer, with 29 F predicted for this weekend. The fruit is coloring up beautifully and now if it tastes good too …
Yup, that’s the one. Here I’ve never had an issue with mildew on any apple or other tree fruit- only euro gooseberries. Spitz is susceptible to scab but not quite to the level of Macintosh. For the next couple of months I expect it to be my favorite apple- and then it will lose its crunch. Goldrush time then.
Don’t worry about late new growth. IME the rest of the tree will harden off normally but new growth may get burned by sudden cold. But you are a bit colder there.
Mine probably came from Cummins, so from the Cornell breeding program.
It is often cited as a desirable heirloom but I’ve never seen it described as anything but very tart off the tree- that is the constant norm as far as I’ve seen, but maybe you’ve seen other evaluations.
I’m just surprised that more people don’t grow the Spitz that I do. I’ve shared it with enough people to know that it is prized by most who taste it and put on the top tier of their favorite varieties.
Unlike Goldrush, it ripens early enough to fair well to the north of me and on short growing seasons here- even without full sun.
It’s also a beautiful apple and not a sponge for summer fungus like Goldrush.