Picked the remaining Frostbite today. My wife and I both really like them and I didn’t want the deer to get them all. Brix tested at 13. I think they’d test higher if allowed to hang into October.
I also picked a bucket of Wakapala. They also tested at 13. This would be a really nice apple if it had a better crunch. I’ll give some to a gal who likes them for baked goods, the rest will go into a sweet cider mix.
Grabbed a few Prairie Spy to see if they’re ripe and the seeds are brown. Yep. They would definitely improve in flavor with another month on the tree I think. I’m going to see if a bunch will keep hanging. Brix tested at 11.
…and here’s why you label grafts well some way or another. This is an apple that I grafted to a Frankentree years ago. I have no idea what it is. It has a nice crop, and they’re excellent. Juicy, crisp, more sweet than tart, and brix tested at 19. Anybody wants to throw a guess out I’d be interested. It likely came from ARS/GRIN
i have about 20 frostbite on my sargents crab tree. tried one 2 days ago and most the seeds are brown. were in moderate drought and it hasnt been watered at all…maybe why its ripened early here too.
How come if i juice say a type of beefsteak tomato the flavor (even after cooking/salting/removing all seeds/skin with a food mill) doesn’t quite compare to a can of tomato juice one finds in the store? Is it all just variety? I’m thinking next year i might move back to a handful of Amish Paste or Opalka. I’ve grown them before. I had so many beefsteak tomatoes that i had to do something so i juiced a bunch. I’ve been eating a few of them daily for probably the last month on top of it. I also need to add a grape tomato back in to the mix.
Grabbed a couple wild apples for brix testing. Red apple from VT (grafted to b118 here). Yellow apple growing on its own roots on my property.
Yellow is quite tasty. Juicy, sweet, crunchy, hint of pear flavor, brix = 14. This apple would be a decent eating “people” apple.
Red has tough, thick skin. Not much juice, flavor, or sweetness, brix = 12. Deer will get all of these.
No pic of the red apple tree, but it’s loaded.
Fruit
Couple more wild apples. Smaller red one grows on its own roots here. The larger one is grafted to a wild crab here, and on its own roots a few miles south. The smaller red one brix tested at 15, is juicy, turning soft, and is delicious. It tastes like good, sweet cider to me. The larger isnt ripe yet, seeds are only half brown. Brix = 10. Juicy, sweeter than tart, but not a lot of flavor. I did spray the smaller once or twice this year. Nothing on the larger ( and it shows).
Both appear to be showing some watercore.
I was just wondering how the commercial stuff has stuff a rich tomato flavor. I think it’s variety. I’m going to move back to a few plants of opalka/amish paste and maybe another type. I have too many beefsteak maters right now. Half of them split open from the rains.
Lots of our beefsteak tomatoes are getting made into salsa. My wife makes the salsa and she likes the beefy fruit. They’re so sweet she adds zero sugar and doesn’t need much tomato paste either.
From the looks of the forecast, we’ll be eating fresh tomatoes well into October.
I picked a couple buckets of Smitty’s Seedling today. This was an off year for the tree. Last year it probably had 6-8 bushels. This year maybe 2-3. Many have dropped already, but theres plenty left. I missed this tree with sprays for the most part this year. I did hit a few branches within close proximity to a Zestar. I found zero apple scab. Plenty of sooty blotch/flyspeck however. The fruit is past peak for fresh eating, starting to get soft. When picked September 7-14 at my location and stored in the crisper they’ll stay relatively crispy until late fall. I brix tested a few, all were 15.
The fruit comes in all sizes and shapes. I imagine that may change with thinning.
I also grabbed a few Not Whitney crabs. A few have dropped, most are still hanging. Brix = 13
My brother has a bunch of apples on his deer hunting land that he has to do something with and i’m like you have to either leave them or get them in a chest freezer and set the temp to near freezing. He thought he could just put them in a cooler int he shade and i’m like they’ll rot in this heat.
I’m freezing apples for cider. I’ll have to thaw them before pressing, but once thawed they don’t have to be shredded. Just press and watch the juice flow
I had lots of Galas still hanging on my that were getting past prime for eating. Took them to the food pantry, where hopefully people will eat them quickly and not try to store them.
More like a plum butter. There is no pectin involved. Plum butter is good, too, but I still have several jars. The sauce doesn’t get cooked down as far as it would for the butter, and the butter is more or less unspiced.
