Growing Apples
Apple trees are as lovely in bloom as any strictly ornamental flowering specimen. But unlike ornamentals, apple trees will provide you with a delicious harvest of fruit. And because you’ll be able to enjoy that fruit fresh off the trees (when it tastes best), you’ll have added incentive to adhere to the old maxim about having one a day to keep the doctor away!
Favorite Apples
Gravenstein
This large fruit has a bright green skin with red stripes. It is crisp and juicy. Especially noted for it’s cooking usage, it also is considered flavorful if a bit tart. It needs a pollinizer.
Honeycrisp
“Explosively crisp”, Honeycrisp apples are fast becoming the most popular apple in the world! It is a large, sweet apple with crisp “to-die-for” texture! Sometimes the name of an apple says it all. Honeycrisp apples are honey sweet (with a touch of tart). No other apple matches its crispness. Honeycrisp apples can store three to four months in the refrigerator. Honeycrisp it is more than an apple it is an eating experience.
Pink Lady Pink Lady
The hallmark of the Pink Lady® is an attractive pink blush over a yellow undertone. The fruit often displays ribbing, or a bumpy skin but remains appealing to consumers despite these peculiarities. Pink Lady® fruit is medium to large-sized and oblong with a crisp texture and dense, cream-colored flesh. This apple releases a sweet-tart flavor with an excellent sugar to acid balance. The vigorous Pink Lady® is an upright tree with large leaves.
Winesap (Stayman)
Long-time favorite late red speckled skin apple. Juicy, smooth texture. Lively flavor, used fresh or for cooking. It needs a pollenizer.
Heirloom Apples
Arkansas Black
Large, late season. Dark red skin, high quality even where summer nights are warm. For dessert and cooking. Keeps many months. Partly self-fruitful. You’ll have a better, more regular harvest when you provide a second type of apple tree that allows successful cross-pollination to occur.
Ashmead’s Kernel
Widely regarded as one of the all-time best-flavored apples. Small to medium-sized fruit; variable shape, often lop-sided. Greenish to golden brown russet skin with reddish highlights. Creamy yellow flesh is aromatic, crisp and sweet. Fruit picked early is somewhat sharp and acidic, but mellows after a few weeks off the tree. Used for dessert, cider, and sauce. Resistant to powdery mildew. From England, discovered in the early 1700s. You’ll have a better, more regular harvest when you provide a second type of apple tree that allows successful cross-pollination to occur.
Cox Orange Pippin
Old favorite dessert apple: firm, juicy, sweet, rich flavor, not tart, distinctive aroma. Skin is orange-red to bright red over yellow. Prefers moderate climate. You’ll have a better, more regular harvest when you provide a second type of apple tree that allows successful cross-pollination to occur.
Rome Beauty
A baker’s dream, but Also a great eating apple. Smooth, blazingly bright red skin with sweet, slightly juicy flesh. Primarily cooking apples, with flavor that intensifies and becomes richer when baked or sauteed.
