Hey, Y’all. I’m late to the party, but let’s crank it up!
Thanks for the invite, by the way.
E,
‘Edible crabs’ - or ‘lunchbox apples’, as someone - was that you, Scott? - once aptly termed them…I prefer that moniker… have a LOT to offer.
As others have indicated, they typically are less affected - at least in my orchard, here on the KY/TN line - than many other apples. I’ve pretty much been a no-care, or ‘lazy-faire’ orchardist; just haven’t had time - or inclination - to do any spraying, and barely any pruning. Went crazy planting apples when we got here 20 years ago…had planted/grafted over 60 varieties at one time, but a few crabs and about 4-5 larger apples are all that are left - or all I bother picking. The crabs are pretty dependable, and mostly perfect…or minimally bothered by scab, PC, or CM, though I’ve been experiencing more CM damage on Kerr as years go by.
Some are tart, some are sweet. Here’s what I’ve got currently.
Centennial(DolgoXWealthy) is a pretty little apple-crab, very sweet, great flavor.
Kerr(DolgoXHaralson, IIRC) is a little smaller, tart, with a musky wine aftertaste
Jim Bastian’s Orange Crab - a chance seedling he found along a roadside in NH is my latest favorite - looks similar to Centennial, but it’s not; dense yellow-orange flesh, great flavor.
Callaway - though it’s really an ornamental type, has long been a favorite in my family, 'cause the kids could fill pockets with them and munch away - 1-1.5" apples, bears heavily, to the point of assuming a semi-weeping habit.
Have had a few others that are reputed to be good - Wickson(was purchased as that, but was NOT), Trailman(lost that one somewhere along the line), Chestnut(lost that one, too, but it’s reputed to be among the tastiest).
Whitney - there are at least two ‘Whitney’ crabs floating around out there…different from one another; Kevin Bradley(EdForest) had 'em both at one time, said one was good, the other, not so much.
Think there’s a Young American tree out there somewhere, but it’s not in a spot I pass by very often; think I’ve seen it fruit once, and was not impressed.
Still have some red-fleshed crabs (Winter Red Flesh, Geneva Crab, Giant Russian, Almata); Ed Fackler warned me off of them nearly 20 years ago, telling me they’d be ‘crap’ here - and, of course, he was right. Almata is decent. The others are not much good to me for anything other than making a nice colorful jelly or tart crabapple vodka infusion; but when you look at it in that light…maybe they’re worth having after all.
Alan, I’d be interested in hitting you up for some Craven scions; got some from Joyce Neighbors just before she passed her collection off to Seed Savers, but once they grew out and fruited…I’m pretty sure it’s not Craven crab - it turned out to be a fairly large apple, ripe in early summer, red with mealy white flesh. Not one that I can imagine anyone enjoying…not sure why Joyce even had that one in her collection…
My dad had a collection of a dozen or more Southern native crabs - M. angustifolia, M.coronaria - that he’d gathered from around east-central AL. He loved to eat those sour astringent fruits all winter long; kinda like morsels of bitter battery acid - if he’d still had his own teeth, I’m sure they’d have eaten the enamel off of them! Have a couple planted here in his memory, but they’re merely soft mast sources for the wildlife.