Thanks Mark but I don’t want you to cut your young growth. Also I’m going to have to get creative to find grafting spots for things I’ve already ordered. I may have to quietly graft on crabs around my community.
First of all they are not all duds, some do very well. Bramley, Blenheim Orange, Adams Pearmain, Worcester Pearmain, Ashmead’s Kernel, Old Nonpareil, Pitmaston Pineapple, and Lamb Abbey Pearmain all do very well for me. I would say about a third to a half of the (non-cider) English apples I tried worked out well.
The ones that didn’t work out mostly had summer rot problems. One reason why I think that is worse is the English season is a lot shorter and so their apples are not ripening in the heat of summer like the same variety would be here. Rots are ten times worse if an apple is ripening in warm weather compared to cool weather. Second, the English average day temps are much cooler than the US averages.
People in the northeast US and in the west should be able to grow a lot more of the English apples, they are much less extreme on the heat/humidity front.
I expected Red Delicious to be pretty bad, but they really haven’t been. Still, they are average at best. The strange thing w/my
Red Delicious is that they started out producing red fruit but have become yellow in the last few years. They are also very reliable to set a crop. I am probably most disappointed with Pixie Crunch and Sundance. They just don’t produce anything. They have grown well over the last 8 years, but I’m still waiting for a decent harvest. I’m also w/Clark that my apricots have been a complete waste of time and effort. Same for nectarines. Nothing but cracks and insect magnets. I’m in southern IL. In all fairness, growing conditions here have been a nightmare for the last four years.
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I believe @applenut describes the Ein Shemer apple as “detestable” as grown in his climate. That’s all I need to know.
Out here in Arizona nothing good is ever said of Ein Shemer…so we havent ever been tempted to grow it. Even tho its a reliable low chill producer.
I used to acquire apple varieties based solely on their neat old names like Sops of Wine. My worst ever apple, in zone 7 anyway. OK confession- I have not broken the habit of growing stuff with neat names but hopefully am being more selective now like Caney Fork Limbertwig. Who can resist growing it? I have at least shown enough willpower to hold off on Slack Ma’ Girdle. Yes, it is an apple.
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Hambone! Can you really resist ‘Slack Ma’ Girdle’? Shocking!
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I’m sure someone will rise to the challenge.
Scott it seem like that’s true of all fruit. As I mentioned I’m a little jealous of the people who can grow apricots but it has a lot to do with location. We can grow great apples and pears here. It’s strange how much variation in apple flavor there is from one location to the next.
Worst apples will depend upon what area they are grown. And what rootstocks. Soil, planting location, weather (climate), pests and disease in the area will effect what is an opinion of “worst.” One man’s treasure is another man’s compost.
Hambone: I got D’Arcy Spice partly for the name, in part for its reputation for big flavor. Sadly, it cannot handle really low humidity.
Médaille d’Or is Gold Medal in French; I like that. Lamb Abbey Pearmain is a fine name and I hope to graft it successfully this season.
Winekist: now that’s a name to conjure an image! Nice apple, too.
Isn’t Slack Ma Girdle a cider apple?
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Not only does he call it “risible” he wrote the term in describing it in “Apples of North America.”
I’d have to say Irish Peach gets the award from me. It suddenly dropped all its unripe apples two years in a row. I never got to taste a fully ripened one. It was a case of Lucy yanking the football. I cut it out this year leaving Kerry’s Irish Pippin to hopefully fill out.
To illustrate just how far conditions can throw an otherwise exemplary apple: I had Queen Cox, which is a bud sport of the highly regarded Cox Orange Pippin. It was among the first apple whips I bought. The tree did fine until allowed to grow any fruit. Then the leaves went crispy as soon as we hit 90 F at 15% humidity. The apples were fit for pigs and starving deer year after year.after year…
I found it a home higher and cooler. The tree died.
Apples that are not ripe are frequently not tasty. Just because an apple has colored up does not mean it is ripe.
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Lodi. A total bug magnet. They were also mealy.
If we didn’t live in Lodi, we wouldn’t grow it. Didn’t have bug problems with the tree that was here when we moved it, but but its apples went mealy in the blink of an eye and we’re pretty much only good for applesauce. When it died, we obtained another. It took 8 years to produce an apple — and I do mean an apple, singular.
I like Lodi. I find that it’s quick to bear fruit. Maybe you got a standard tree? It’s the first to kick off apple season. They are not bad for fresh eating if you catch them a little under ripe. Prefect for applesauce and cider. It’s definitely not a keeper.
I will be grafting over Irish peach (falls before ripe) and E. Spitzenburg (disease magnet) this Spring.
What is odd is that I got the tree from St. Lawrence, hoping that the Lodi’s reputation for early bearing would counteract the Antonovka rootstock. Years later, the tree, although the opposite of precocious, is fully dwarfing — it doesn’t yet reach my shoulder. I have received misidentified trees from St Lawrence before, which is frustrating when you have to wait 5 or more years to learn the mistake, so until the tree first fruited, I was unsure what the tree might be.
NOTE: my misidentified trees were ordered while St Lawrence was under its former management, so please take this as no reflection on its current owners.
SECOND NOTE: being able to eat any fresh apple in late July or early August is the quality that makes Lodi at least a little endearing.
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Interesting difference on Lodi. I have a couple of them, and they are by far our most productive trees. Always give a good crop. Not much in the way of insect damage, little bit of fire blight but it recovers when its removed. It’s true that the apples don’t keep and are really best in cooking or sauce. But for those purposes I would not want to be without it.
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