My orchard is still in the grafting/planning phase, and I have a lot of research left to do! This year I decided to take pictures and write tasting notes for every rare or new-to-me apple variety I found. Luckily I live in an area with lots of interesting heirlooms, and it was really fun how many I found once I started looking. Many of these weren’t on my radar before but now I’m definitely grafting them.
Thought y’all may enjoy, so here’s my picture collection. Ask away if you have any questions on them.
My favorite all-around apples: Pink Pearl and Wickson
Fav new-to-me heirloom varieties: Rhode Island Greening, Winesap, Davisson
Fav new-to-me club apples: Sweetie, Lucy Glo
Most unusual flavor: Pristine, Davisson
Most interesting appearance: Hudson’s Golden Gem, Lucy Glo
Biggest disappointments: Lucy Rose, Pink Pearmain, Arkansas Black
Nice selection. Your sample of Pink Pearl is lovely.
I agree that the “Maiden’s Blush” is mislabeled; it looks more like Strawberry Parfait (NJ46).
Your Pink Pearmain shows surprisingly little color. I grow them not far from your location, and they’re quite red inside. I suspect that the lack of pigment in your sample affected the taste considerably. They’re pretty good, if a bit tart, here.
Ark Black needs to be picked late and spend at least a month in storage before it’s worth eating, in my experience. Perhaps your sample was picked a bit early.
Davisson was a nice surprise - I purchased it through a grocery service in San Francisco, then discovered it was a chance seedling from my home town, Sebastopol! I suspect Devoto Orchards is the only one growing it. Most of the time it’s just a pleasant, sweet, low-acid, crunchy apple, but occasionally it develops these unique herbal flavors, like rosemary and lemon grass. I’ve never had anything quite like that. Hoping to score some scionwood eventually.
Oh, I think you might be right on the Strawberry Parfait! That’s good to know. It was very delicious, though soft and probably too old by the time I got to it. I’d love to try it again.
The Pink Pearmain was awful. I’m a big fan of Etter apples so I still plan to try to grow it but they certainly seem like a difficult group to get to market. That Pink Pearl on the other hand was grown in Sebastopol and was utterly perfect.
I tried to store a few AB’s in the fridge and they just got mealy and still tasted very bland. I don’t think these were grown locally, though. Do you grow them? I’m interested in cider and cider/dessert apples and I’m curious how well these do in our climate.
They’re normally soft when ripe; the texture is almost pear-like. They’re so good in this climate that I don’t mind the texture any more. They’re poor keepers, though, so store-bought examples may indeed be past their prime.
I do have a young graft that’s produced the last couple of seasons. I don’t have enough experience with it yet to know how productive or reliable it is here.
Late-ish dessert/cider alternatives that I can now vouch for in this climate are Stayman, King David, Magnum Bonum, Hauer Pippin, and Albemarle/Yellow Newtown Pippin.
Nice, I have Newtown Pippin on a multigraft tree I purchased. King David seems popular here, and after tasting Winesap I want to add both it and Stayman. I’ll be sure to research those others - they’re new to me!
Great looking pics! I am going to graft some different ones this year as well and some of those pics have made it much harder to wait til things start to bud out!
What can you tell me about Pristine? I have a tree, will be on its 5th leaf this year and it hasn’t produced any fruit yet. Last year it had a few blooms and fruit, but none made it to maturity.
I picked it based on it being supposedly one of the better early varieties, along with good disease resistance. I have never tasted one, so wondered what they’re really like.
Also was curious about the very interestingly named Chenango Strawberry.
We have a Winesap, BTW, but no fruit off it, either. Same age as the Pristine, but much bigger, but had some kind of issue last year I think, because of root issues. A shame, as it’s maybe one of our top 5 favorite varieties.
My tasting notes don’t match most online so Pristine may vary a lot by region (I think mine was grown in Oregon), but I thought it was fantastic! It was complex, with a unique champagne vinegar flavor. It wasn’t very sweet despite seeming fully ripe. I really, really like it and definitely want to grow it. I’m surprised that it’s not more popular with home growers.
Chenango Strawberry was very interesting. I think underripe due to the color, and apparently they don’t transport well when fully ripe. It was watery/refreshing and had a nice sweet/tart balance and mild floral flavor. When I let some pieces sit and oxidize for a bit, then came back to taste them, I did notice the strawberry flavor, though it was still mild. It’s a variety I’d consider growing to see if was better just off the tree. They’re terrible market apples apparently so I was very lucky to get to try one at all.
I love the Winesaps, too! I was able to get a bunch this year and they’re definitely a new favorite.
Thanks for the reply. Yes, fruit can vary widely in flavor depending on where it’s grown, but that sounds promising about Pristine, even here in NE Kentucky.
I did some reading of CS after I posted, sounds like it’s a tough apple to pick at the right time, and even after that, they don’t store well. Seems interesting, tho.
We got our Winesap’s from an orchard in central KY about two hours west of us. They are always huge fruit, but still have a good balance of sweet and tart, and pretty crunchy, too.
We have 16 varieties of apples growing, and a few of them we haven’t been able to try anywhere- Macoun, King David, Novaspy and Pristine. I got them mostly on the good reviews I’ve seen. All the others we’ve been lucky to try, and most of them seem like good choices.
We got about a dozen apples last year from four or five trees, so hoping for a better crop this year. Best of those was a Suncrisp, sweet, tart, nice aromatics, a really good apple. I have another bench graft in a pot that’s going in the ground this spring.
Wickson and Rubinette were some I considered but decided on the others.
Same - my main interests are weird apples, red-fleshed apples, and cider, so I’ll have to plant quite a few without tasting them.
Of the list above, here’s what I’ll be planting:
Pink Pearl
Wickson
Crimson Gold
Rhode Island Greening
Hudson’s Golden Gem
Winesap
Pristine
Black Twig
Davisson (if I can find it)
I’d like to multigraft the promising-but-maybe-no-good stuff like CS and Strawberry Parfait (which seems to be what Maiden’s Blush actually was) onto established trees eventually just to see how they do. Still may consider Arkansas Black for cider and Pink Parfait because I think I did just get a poor specimen. But none are high priority.
The Rubinette I tried was not good, and in fact none of the Cox relatives I’ve tried that were grown locally were any good. I plan to test out maybe one Cox variety, but I doubt they’re meant for my climate. If Suncrisp grows well for you I bet Rubinette would be a good choice!
Wickson is amazing when grown well. But I hear it’s difficult to grow at all in the South. Still, I highly recommend trying it. I don’t know if Crimson Gold fares any better in that climate, but it’s similar (milder, less interesting, but good) and has done better commercially so maybe it’s an option. A lot of people around here are making interesting Wickson crosses, too, so maybe some of them will be less fussy to grow.
Last year was my first round of grafting ever, so I’m in the same boat of waiting around for a long time for things to produce! I have to live vicariously through everyone here.
Curious if these are Winesap or perhaps Stayman’s Winesap? The “old-fashioned” Winesap you can find at farmer’s markets around here occasionally and they’re always small/medium in size. Stayman on the other hand can get quite large. And to my taste beat the parent Winesap hands down. Sweet/tart/crunchy…
Just curious because I’ve also seen folks indicating that places like Lowes that sell a potted “Winesap”, is actually “Stayman”. Wondering if some orchards also just shorten the name like that… Thanks.
For what it’s worth, I’m growing Cox and a number of its descendants (Rubinette, Suntan, Karmijn de Sonneville, St. Cecelia) in nearby Point Reyes Station, and all are really good and rank among our favorites. It’s a bit cooler here than your area, I think, but I’d encourage you not to give up on them without trying some grafts first.
I’ve heard folks in this part of the country have trouble growing Wickson, so it may be a West coast type of apple.
Suncrisp I think has some Cox lineage, and does well here. I bet you could have success with SC there. I might try Rubinette for some grafting, don’t know if I want a whole tree. I also have another Cox descendant, Alkmene. It produced some fruit the last couple of years, and I like it, complex flavors, good balanced apple.
No, they were regular Winesap, or Stark Winesap as the owners call them. They also grow Stayman. I like both varieties, but WC is a bit better to me. Its also bigger in size. Stayman has a beautiful almost purple coloring to it, whereas WC is more varied and lighter.
We were at an Amish market last week and they had some Stayman for sale, so I picked a few up. The flavor’s pretty good, but the skin is a bit chewy.
I like Stayman enough to do a bench graft of a sport (Snapp) of it a couple years ago. It’s about a two foot whip now in a pot, it’s going in the ground in a couple months.
Well, I bought what I thought was a Winesap from Lowe’s four years ago. It was potted and about 5ft tall then. Now, it’s about 15ft tall, but has yet to produce anything. It hardly leafed out last year, so something’s up with it. I think it has some kind of root issue, maybe crown rot. We’ll see how it does this year.
I do recall that I have seen Stayman trees sold at Lowe’s, but mine had Winesap on the label.
That is curious. Perhaps just local growing conditions, but all I’ve ever seen haven’t been that large. Whomever added info to Wikipedia describes Winesap as “small to medium” as well. I’ve on the other hand eaten many many Stayman that were probably upwards of a pound.
Stark introduced Stayman in 1895 but they probably also sold Winesap prior to that. I’ve seen a lot of different {Insert name} Winesap varieties but hadn’t really read about Snapp before. And now of course I want one
Well, Winesaps are triploid, and from what I’ve read these types of apples can get big. Probably are exceptions to this claim, though. I think Stayman are triploid, too, though.
The Stayman at the orchard were also large from what I remember. I just asked my wife about our visits there, and she remembers the Stayman’s were bigger, and she preferred them over the WS. Maybe I’m misremembering, but no big deal.
That owner says Stayman has a tendency to split, and I recall @blueberrythrill had that issue on his orchard.
At any rate, if my big ole WS tree survives and produces, and my Snapp reaches production, I’ll know for sure then! But that may be another 5 years from now.
