2024 Apple Report

It was a great year in my young orchard. Here's a review of each variety that fruited this year, along with a few lessons I learned.

For a young apple orchard, I did pretty well this year. All of my trees fruited, except for my two youngest trees: Liberty & Mutsu.

Lesson #1: One thing that is confusing me greatly is when to pick. Common wisdom says to gently tilt the apple upward, if it comes off easily, they are ready to pick. Trouble is, many of the apples that seemed to come off easily didn’t seem ripe enough to pick and could have used more time on the tree. For the most part, there did not seem to be any kind of issue with leaving them on the tree after they *seem* ready to pick. Next year I will leave them on longer, to see how much better they fare.

Lesson #2. It’s also possible that the apples lacked some flavor because the trees are just too young, not thinned enough, or don’t get enough sun. My plan is to thin the apples even more next year than I did this year to see if that helps. I’m a bit of a picky apple eater - and would much rather have excellent fresh tasting apples versus mediocre ones.

I’m happy to report that I haven’t seen a speck of scab, and I haven’t seen any insects - but I am meticulously bagging each fruit as I thin. Fingers crossed that my luck continues.

Here is a list of the trees that fruited this year:

Yellow Bellflower fruited for its first time this year.. I got about a half dozen fruits and they were all sweet, mild, crisp, juicy, large. They did quickly start to go soft when kept at room temp though.

Centennial Crabapple is a baby tree. I let it set a couple of fruits this year, and thinned out the rest so that it could focus on growing the tree. The flavor: sweet, a little tart, crisp, juicy. Quite good. I picked these fruits in mid-August

Centennial Crabapple

Zabergau Reinette- first year fruiting, and I got two very large fruits. The first fruit was picked 9/1 and tasted 9/29. The flavor was bland, a touch astringent, not very sweet. The seeds were quite dark brown, so it seemed ripe. The next apple came off several weeks later. It was much better than the first.

Hudson’s Golden Gem been fruiting for two years. Last year I had a few fruits, and they were super delicious. The first ones I picked this year were really bland though. Such a bummer. The next one that seemed ready a few weeks later - it was much better but still not quite as good. Better still were the fruits that came later.

Hatsuaki fruited last year and I liked the flavor of them quite a bit. They reminded me a bit of Mutsu and were green. This year, however, they grew into an absolutely beautiful orange-red color, and were much sweeter than last year. So far, this one is an absolute winner.

Hatsuaki

Spitzenberg - again, the first fruits to come off were kind of bland. But a few weeks later and they were quite good - somewhat sweet-tart in a refreshing way. Excellent with cheddar.

Queen Cox. Has been fruiting for 3 years. I have had fruits that were very good from it, but it seems to really want to fruit heavily every year. The flavor was ok, especially as a cooked apple (I made a German Apple pancake with this and it was very good) but I think it will be even better if I thin it down even more - like one per ever 24 inches of space.

Golden Russet - 1st year of fruiting. Small. The tree seems to have exceptionally low vigor. The fruit is small, somewhat dry, but sweet and good. The fruits I’ve had from the Home Orchard Education Center were even better, so I’m excited for its potential. Think apple soaked in honey combined with the flavor of hazelnut. Excellent. They are so good I am considering adding a second tree in the future.

Golden Russet. Not a conventionally pretty apple, but excellent flavor.

Ashmead’s Kernel - word is that this “exceptional” apple does not taste good until aged a few weeks in the cooler and supposed to last a few months. Mine were picked mid-September, and I pulled them out of the refrigerator on 11/3. They are quite small, and the flavor is good but nothing special and starting to soften quite a bit. I’ve had Ashmead’s from a prominent, high-quality local orchard once before and wasn’t impressed. I will keep trying.

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What has your apple year been like? Drop me a comment below.

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