Apples

[aeolium]

The arrival of the new apples is always a highlight of autumn for me, even in this unusually poor season for fruit. I'd be interested to learn which varieties (especially more obscure ones) are particular favourites of MBers. My own favourites are Ashmead Kernel and Egremont Russet. The latter does turn up in supermarkets but the Ashmead is usually a type I only find at fruit farms.

NB Apple Day (various dates between late Sept and mid Oct depending on location) is usually a chance to sample some rarer varieties.

[teamsaint]

Yum.Have one every day with my sarnies at luchtime.
Im am not an expert on varieties, though an autumn Russet is always a treat.
But question for the experts, why do apples taste EVEN better when sliced or quartered?

[amateur51]

The arrival of the new apples is always a highlight of autumn for me, even in this unusually poor season for fruit. I'd be interested to learn which varieties (especially more obscure ones) are particular favourites of MBers. My own favourites are Ashmead Kernel and Egremont Russet. The latter does turn up in supermarkets but the Ashmead is usually a type I only find at fruit farms.

NB Apple Day (various dates between late Sept and mid Oct depending on location) is usually a chance to sample some rarer varieties.

I bought some medium-sized Cox's Orange Pippin from Sainsbury the other day and they're as crisp and as sharp as I remember them, which is good to find.

Like you I like Egremont Russet before they start to go woolly. My father had several Laxton Superb and Laxton Fortune trees trained along a wall and they produced small but deliciously crisp and sharp eating apples.

From the supermarkets I enjoy Jazz and Braeburn but I long for the days when you could buy Lord Lambourne and Blenheim Orange in a greengrocer's shop.

[doversoul1]

James Greave. I last tested them some 20 years ago in an elderly acquaintance’s garden, and they have since become my dream apples. I have a Golden Delicious tree in my garden (planted by mistake). It bears fruit that looks and tastes nothing like those offensive variety sold in supermarkets.

teamsaint
Surely apples taste best if you bite into them, and straight from the tree.

[teamsaint]

James Greave. I last tested them some 20 years ago in an elderly acquaintance’s garden, and they have since become my dream apples. I have a Golden Delicious tree in my garden (planted by mistake). It bears fruit that looks and tastes nothing like those offensive variety sold in supermarkets.

teamsaint
Surely apples taste best if you bite into them, and straight from the tree.

Straight from the tree perhaps....not easy in some of the places where I take my mid day meal, though !!

As for the slicing.....Yummy to bite , even better sliced .But this is a difference of opinion we can all live with !

[salymap]

Cox's or Braeburn for eating, Bramley for cooking. My dad had about five small trees when I was a child, planted as an espalier. Can't remember all the names, James Greave,Laxton something, one Cox's tree that hardly gave any fruit - all I can remember..

Very sad that I have had the worst year ever and harvested about three Bramleys..Cooked with brown sugar and a little cinnamon, gorgeous.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

NB Apple Day (various dates between late Sept and mid Oct depending on location) is usually a chance to sample some rarer varieties.

I thoroughly recommend:

http://www.middlefarm.com/apple-festival.html

... lots of varieties, and an enviable selection of ciders and peries. The cream teas in the cafe are splendid, too. (Just along the main road from Charleston Farmhouse, too!) And, if the festival doesn't appeel , there's always plenty of fruit left to buy in the days after the weekend.

We've had a Charles Ross dwarf apple tree in the garden since 1997: excellent tasting fruit (a pear-like taste from the early droppers, which make decent cookers - sweetly tart from later fruits) but, alas, in the past 2-3 years the yield has gone down to a single fruit!

[aeolium]

... lots of varieties, and an enviable selection of ciders and peries. The cream teas in the cafe are splendid, too. (Just along the main road from Charleston Farmhouse, too!)

Of course I should have mentioned the various apple juices, ciders, apple cakes & other good appley stuff, fhg. Still, they're all on-topic

[french frank]

Some years back I bought what was called a family fan - a fan-shaped tree which had a main stock of James Greave, and Egremont Russet and Cox's OP grafts. It never actually bore any Cox's though, and only one or two Egremonts.

Laxton's Fortune is quite good among those you don't often see in the greengrocer's. When I was a child, we had Beauty of Bath which I remember as sweet and slightly perfumed, and another called Tom Putt which was inedible, possibly because the tree was very old.

Like others, I go for Braeburn among the usual supermarket varieties.

[french frank]

and another called Tom Putt which was inedible, possibly because the tree was very old.

Or possibly because it was a cider apple. I did not know that.

[hedgehog]

We've had a Charles Ross dwarf apple tree in the garden since 1997: excellent tasting fruit (a pear-like taste from the early droppers, which make decent cookers - sweetly tart from later fruits) but, alas, in the past 2-3 years the yield has gone down to a single fruit!

Ferneyhoughgeliebte, Charles Ross is only a partially self-fertile apple tree. You may have been getting the benefits of somebody else's apple tree nearby which has been cut down?
You may need to plant a dwarf companion to it to get more fruit.

http://www.orangepippintrees.co.uk/pollinationchecker.aspx?v=1010

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ferneyhoughgeliebte, Charles Ross is only a partially self-fertile apple tree. You may have been getting the benefits of somebody else's apple tree nearby which has been cut down?
You may need to plant a dwarf companion to it to get more fruit.

http://www.orangepippintrees.co.uk/p...er.aspx?v=1010

Many thanks for this useful link, hedgehog.

Yes; fortunately we live opposite an enormous crab apple tree which seemed to work well for about ten years (we used to get a dozen or so decent fruits each year) and then suddenly not. I wonder if they've had a tiff? (There is this flighty young Braeburn moved into the neighbourhood recently ... )

[amateur51]

Many thanks for this useful link, hedgehog.

Yes; fortunately we live opposite an enormous crab apple tree which seemed to work well for about ten years (we used to get a dozen or so decent fruits each year) and then suddenly not. I wonder if they've had a tiff? (There is this flighty young Braeburn moved into the neighbourhood recently ... )

That's shaken me to the core, ferney

Enough to give you the pip!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

That's shaken me to the core, ferney

Enough to give you the pip!

... then there's that there Granny Smith: there's something about the more mature woman ...

(Comment about "crabs apple" removed on grounds of good taste.)

[hedgehog]

Many thanks for this useful link, hedgehog.

Yes; fortunately we live opposite an enormous crab apple tree which seemed to work well for about ten years (we used to get a dozen or so decent fruits each year) and then suddenly not. I wonder if they've had a tiff? (There is this flighty young Braeburn moved into the neighbourhood recently ... )

Hmmm just a dozen....you be needin to feed y'r tree a bit more methinks ferneyhoughgeliebte........that fresh young Braeburn might be gettin all them bees!

(or alternatively, walk across to that big crab apple with a paintbrush and do a bit of self fertilization, plus feeding, dwarf trees need a bit of help)