Quick report on the ‘keeper’ apple tasting at the Food Not Lawns seedswap in Eugene this past Sunday, November 16, 2008.
Most of the varieties I sourced from a local meat and poultry farmer a couple of days prior to the event. The trees were espaliered - about 100 or so varieties along the length of his driveway. Benign neglect the orcharding approach. Hence most of the apples were in poorish condition and this will of course have colored the tasting experience. Selection procedure was determined largely by what was still hanging on the trees.
This was the first tasting I have orchestrated, so a few lessons learned – such as the need to provide a feedback form - which I spaced. Below is a list of the varieties I had to hand. If any of you care to provide any feedback or pointers relating to any particular standouts for you, I would be most obliged. I’m particularly interested in any anecdotal cropping/harvesting experience peculiar to the PNW. I’ll synthesize knowhow around keeping and storage into digestible form as I am able.
On Sunday, three varieties stood out in preference. Goldrush, Hudson’s Golden Gem and Sturmer Pippin.
Goldrush came in a clear first. It’s an apple that appears to be in a class of its own. So very new to the art of orcharding I nevertheless find it constantly surfacing as a recommended variety among my burgeoning network of experienced fruit contacts in the S. Willamette Valley. (One hand shared that Nick Bottner who I have personally heard reluctant to pick a favorite (“every variety with a name will will have been named because it is specialâ€) told a cohort that Goldrush was his number one choice for the finest all-round apple.) A trifle tacky, perhaps, to repeat such a story, but the praise, if true, doesn’t surprise me. Goldrush just keeps popping up, enthusiastically, on my neophyte radar, time after time. In the field, the only thing I’ve seen slow it is bear-predation. It’s one of the few apples I have experience storing, and goodness, does it carry. (I am in the library just now and I think I will conclude this para by turning aside from the blue-screen to indulge in a silence-shattering Goldrushian bite. There. Yum.)
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/new.....p38-3.html
Personally, it was nice to see Hudson’s Golden Gem and Sturrmer Pippin make the cut. The former, because it is an Oregon heirloom - and yes, three people asked, somewhat perplexed, whether it was a pear.
http://www.vintagevirginiaapples.com/ap ... oldgem.htm
And the Sturmer Pippin because it hails from a part of England very close indeed to where my father has long-lived.
http://www.vintagevirginiaapples.com/ap ... oldgem.htm
Here’s the list in full.
Most popular:
1.
Goldrush
Hudson’s Golden Gem
Sturmer Pippin
2.
Ralls Janet
3.
Ribston Pippin
Prairie Spy
Empire
Tompkins King
Calville Blanc
D’Arcy Spice
Freedom
Eosopus Spitzenberg
Grimes Golden
Newtown Spitzenburg
Liberty
Api
Stayman Winesap
Sweet Sixteen
Bramley’s Seedling
Ralls Janet
Arkansas Black
Although Liberty is not a great winter keeper, it is one fine apple fresh off the tree. One of my fav's for fresh eating, certainly. I like alternating mouthfuls of Liberty with red raspberries that are practically growing underneath it. That's a treat!
At least Goldrush is a good keeper if you do not allow it to shrivel from drying out. Needs a humid cold storage environment.
Liberty also is disease and bug-resistant. It is taking over my tree that had Fuji and Red Gravenstein. I like the Red Gravenstein, but it can take over the Fuji. Taste is only sweet, not complex or tart enough for me.
My problem is when I started grafting, I was only getting like 50% take, so I didn't label them. Now I've got to label them. I think that I grafted one Gold Rush and tasted my first one this year. Excellent. I like the tart flavor so I ate it right away, but it's nice to know that it stores well. We will probably need to know a lot about this in the next few years.
John S
PDX OR
Yes, I think you hit it on the nail, John. We will need to know a great deal more about carrying food over in forthcoming years. As I have moved toward sourcing more of my food locally, food preservation has become a huge focus of activity in my life. I was just telling someone today that my dehydrator has been running nonstop since June. It began with the first flush of strawberries, the 'excess' of which I begin slicing and drying (strawberry chips are a huge hit with everyone) and is continuing now with what I suspect will be the last preserved harvest - walnuts. That's six months non-stop dehydrating.
I never had any idea that food preservation was going to prove so absolutely critical to sustaining myself locally. Yes, I'd read and heard about food preservation, but I had always assumed that it was still something of a sideline activity. Experience has completely changed that attitude. Almost every month of the year, I'm relying hugely on eating stored foods, whether potatoes, grains, beans, winter squash, onions, garlic, canned tomatoes, fruit of all sorts. Yes, I think I prefer the term 'stored foods' to 'preserved foods.'
Given that I source almost all my food locally, and seasonally, I find myself especially sensitive to 'gaps' in fresh food. I have spent some years exploring the rich intricacies of feeding myself through PNW winters with fresh vegetables (the 'winter season' is by far and away the longest harvest season of the year)
http://www.seedambassadors.org/Mainpage ... winter.htm
This season I'm trialing another 20 cabbage varieties, about a dozen Brussels sprouts, eight carrot varieties, and so on. Hence the keen interest in fresh year-round fruit.
n
I can't sit here without mentioning White Winter Pearmain. In our mountains I can find them in February under the snow and leaves and still be good. The outside is wrinkled and punky like Yellow Newtown gets, but the inside is juicy, crisp, and flavorful. But unlike YNP they are excellent right off the tree in late fall.
Applenut
Several people have written about apples keeping better with humidity. Should we leave a bucket of water in the area of apple storage? Will this attract rodents/bugs? Which apples are nutritionally/ flavorwise damaged by drying? Will humidity cause some apples to be damaged or keep for a shorter period?
Thanks
John S
PDX OR
Yes, my sense is that humidity does help apples store longer. Or rather, I should say that apples kept in plastic bags with some moisture, appear to store well. I haven't tried this myself but I was at Nick Botner's recently and he showed me his winter storage set-up. Essentially, it amounts to ziplocked gallon bags full of apples, with a little moisture inside, placed in plastic, lidded totes, parked under the eaves on the north side of his house. Where they remain through freezes and the like. My guess is that winter nighttime temperatures where he is average in the mid-to high-30's, with dips into the 20's ten or so nights a winter, and into the teens about 3-5 nights. The apples go through until April under those conditions. Another clear example that storing apples successfully through winters requires little in the way of resources or sophistication.
None of the old literature I have encountered recommends moisture. I'm curious why not. My sense is they would have given it a go. Life pre-ziplock?
n
Idyllwild
simplepress
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
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