Who has tasted Virginia Beauty apple? I know a couple of you just started growing it but it’s too early to bear. I wonder if there is a reason I can’t seem to find anyone who has eaten it.
Tom Burford at one time listed it as a favorite apple but he left it out of his book Apples of North America.
A friend wants good pie apples. Trying to confirm rumor that VB makes good pie.
We bought a case of them from a NC orchard. I liked them enough to try and buy a tree from Century Farms but was told it would not do well in my area with high heat and humidity so got Arkansas Black instead. We only eat fresh so can’t help with the cooking.
Well I’ve got pretty high heat and humidity here so will test that theory. I have a three year old VB tree that should bear this year. So far no disease issues with the tree and nice wide branch angles. Not a lot of fruit spurs though, shy to make spurs.
I talked to a lady at Albemarle Orchard in Va who has eaten VB-she said it was no great shakes as a fresh eating apple, ok but not great and that many people grow it out of nostalgia.
I’ve noticed that various online sources–e.g., nurseries–generally quote Lee Calhoun, without giving him credit, when describing old Southern heirloom varieties, which doesn’t speak well to their firsthand knowledge of the apples. This fall, I planted a VA Beauty, based on Calhoun’s description, as well as David Vernon’s and Tim Hensley’s. I’m hoping I like it when it bears in a couple years (bud 9 rootstock).
Likewise for Victoria Limbertwig–everyone just quotes Burford and Calhoun, without giving them credit. I aim to get one of those planted soon.
I agree its hard to separate the “wheat from the chaff” with some of these old apples. Fortunately things are getting better as more people grow them and there are more first-hand descriptions to be found.
Like the rest of you my VA Beauty has not fruited yet. Hopefully in a few years we will have a bunch of opinions here on it. It is supposed to be slow to bear and that follows what my tree is doing.
Virginia Beauty is the favorite apple of the people who run the orchard that we buy apples from.
Ours has a few spurs so with any luck we should get a few apples this year. I don’t remember whether I grafted it on 111 or 118 but it looks like it would like to be a big tree, this will be the fifth leaf here. If we do get fruit this year or next I think it’ll settle in and be a nice tree it already has lots of horizontal wood. For us Powdery Mildew is the biggest concern and Virginia Beauty seems unaffected. I’ve never tried the fruit and have never spoken to anyone who has but she’s a “beauty” so it has to be good right? Seriously though it has proven to be a healthy trouble free tree so unless the apple is terrible I think ol’ Zach Safwright’s discovery is gonna be here awhile.
Here’s a Virginia Beauty I picked this morning. A little early for it to be ripe according to what I’ve read, but I’m in zone 6A and it came off the tree with almost no pressure from me. I only have 2 apples on a 3 year old B9 tree. I would describe it as mildly sweet with no tartness and a tough skin. It has the russetted bonnet and greenish yellow flesh described by David Vernon. It didn’t “knock my socks off” but I’d definitely eat another one. No insect or disease damage.
Update of Virginia Beauty and Blight: I just put it in my category of Blight Magnet. Consistently hit with FB when nothing else shows any. You’ll see some catalog descriptions of it as disease resistant- maybe to cedar rust. Tired of cutting off scaffold limbs. May graft over to Hooples.
I’ve got four apples growing nicely on my VA Beauty planted in Fall 2016. It’s on Bud-9 from Century Farm Orchards. It had to be at least two years old when I planted it, based on the thickness of the leader. This is its first year to fruit. Well, it tried to in 2017, but I picked the flowers off.
The apples are developing the large russet bonnet at the top, just like the online pictures. The tree has exhibited few of the issues that some of my other trees have.
In the spring of 2017, I cut the leader off at about 3.5 feet or so and cleft-grafted a Mississippi apple called Johnson on top–an act which I periodically regret. The Johnson part of the tree has yet to fruit. I have considered cutting off the Johnson at about 6 feet and putting VA Beauty on top.
VB was mushy in our heat, Hunge and King David blow it away.
@applenut Kevin- One Hunge review I saw online somewhere said it had greasy skin and needs to be peeled. True?
For what it’s worth, that’s not been my experience in Northern California, but that could be due to our cooler temperatures.
Maybe after months in storage, we ate ours immediately and nothing was wrong with the skin. The below Hunge was grown in Zambia in zero chill, David Vernon at Century Farm Orchards said it looks identical to the ones grown there.
Wow, nice. Hope your African project is doing well.
I had a half dozen this year, they were tasty here in Dallas
My so-called Virginia Beauty finally fruited, but it looks like it is the wrong variety. It is ripe now and doesn’t have the russet by the stem and doesn’t seem red enough. The apple I have is nice and fruity but is rotting too much so it will probably not be a keeper.
I got this in a trade, not the first time I have gotten the wrong variety to say the least. Hopefully I didn’t send this on to anybody myself 
Scott- Hope I wasn’t the source of your Not Virginia Beauty. I bench grafted mine in 2014 but forgot to record my source, as I usually do. Either Steve Kelly or Ron Joyner. It was a blight magnet for me so I grafted it over to Hooples Antique Gold which also was a FB magnet so grafted it over to Belle de Boskoop which also gets its share of blight but OMG is it a fabulous eating apple. Kind of like King David- maybe worth putting up with disease. That’s a short list though, for me.
Nope! It was not a GF-er I don’t think. It could have also been my own mix-up, but I checked what else I grafted that year and nothing matches the above. This unknown apple tastes like a Northern Spy relative, it has a similar fruity flavor. But it is not like any Northern Spy relative that I know.
Here is the last of the four on my VA Beauty. It dropped from the tree sometime over the past three days. Aside from one spot of either bruise or rot, it looks great. I’ll eat this one tomorrow.
Of the first three, the first wasn’t ripe, but the other two were really good–a blend of tart and sweet. I’m not one who detects cinnamon or oak barrel or anise or cherry notes in foods or drinks, so I’ll defer that kind of description to others.
