Apples
Gravenstein: This old variety (1790) is one of the best apples for applesauce, pies and juice. The skin is thin, tender, and greenish-yellow with broken stripes of red. The flesh is firm, crisp, juicy and tart. Many customers also like them as a tart, fresh eating apple. For applesauce and pies these apples are picked while the skin is still green and the texture is crunchy. Gravenstein gets this name because it was grown in the castle garden of the Duke of Augustenberg at Graefenstein, Germany.
Uses: Fresh eating, desserts, cooking (applesauce, puree, apple butter), baking, juice/cider
Available for picking: Usually beginning in late July until around mid-August
Paula Reds: We use Paula Red, with their beautiful red blush and crisp, sweet-tart white flesh, in the same ways we use Gravensteins. Excellent for eating and cooking. (Michigan, 1960)
Uses: Fresh eating, desserts, cooking (applesauce, puree, apple butter), baking, juice/cider
Available for picking: Usually beginning in late July until around mid-August
Gala: This apple cultivar has a sweet, mild flavor, a crisp but not hard texture, and a striped or mottled orange or reddish appearance. Originating from New Zealand in the 1930s. In 2018, it surpassed Red Delicious as the apple with the highest production in the United States.
Uses: Mainly fresh eating
Available for picking: Usually beginning in mid-September
September Fuji: This apple cultivar was developed in Japan in the late 1930s, and came to the United States market in 1962. It’s one of th 9 most popular apples in the US. It is a cultivar of Red Delicious and Virginia Ralls Janet. This apple is red blush, with sweet, juicy flesh.
Uses: Fresh eating, cooking, baking, adding to salads, creating sauces
Available for picking: Usually beginning in late–September
Yellow/Golden Delicious: This apple is firm, crisp and juicy with a mild, sweet, and distinctive flavor. It is the second most popular dessert apple in the United States. Try them…they won’t be like the ones from the grocery store! This apple appeared in 1912 as a chance seedling on the farm of Anderson Mullins in Clay County, West Virginia. Mullins sold the tree for $5000 in 1914 to Stark Brothers Nursery in Missouri, and a steel cage was erected around it to prevent the theft of scion wood for propagation as it traveled back to Missouri. Some of our customers make pies and applesauce from these.
Uses: Fresh eating, desserts, cooking, (applesauce, puree, apple butter), juice/cider
Available for picking: Usually beginning in mid-September
Red Delicious: The most popular sweet apples in the United States. We grow an old variety that has red stripes, with white flesh that is tender, fine-grained, crisp and juicy. The flavor is mild, and the aroma is distinctive. But don’t be fooled…these are not like the ones in the grocery store. Red Delicious was a chance seedling found in 1872 on the farm of Jesse Hiatt of Peru, Iowa, in a known variety orchard. It was deliberately chopped down twice and then permitted to grow and fruit, “If thee must grow, thee may.” Hiatt decided to promote it as a new variety and originally named it ‘Hawkeye.’ In 1893, he sent it to a competition sponsored by Stark Brothers Nursery in Missouri. The paper of identification was lost, but Hiatt re-entered it in 1894, and Stark bought the rights to propagate it and renamed it ‘Red Delicious’.
Uses: Fresh eating
Available for picking: Usually beginning in late September
Rome Beauty: This large apple has juicy, creamy-yellow flesh. It is an all purpose apple and is considered one of the best apples for baking. A good keeper. It was recorded in 1848. Joel Gillett in Proctorville, Ohio, bought a number of grafted trees from Putnam Nursery in 1816. One had sprouted below the graft and Gillett gave this tree to his son. It produced large attractive apples that he named Rome, for the township. The original tree was washed away in a flood in 1860.
Uses: Fresh eating, desserts, cooking (applesauce, puree, apple butter), baking
Available for picking: Usually beginning in early October
Spitzenberg: Said to be Thomas Jefferson’s favorite apple. Superior in flavor and quality. These are simply delicious! An heirloom variety, New York, before 1800. These make great pies and applesauce. Sweet-tart they are also a good eating apple. We have one variety that is red and one with just a red blush.
Uses: Fresh eating, desserts, cooking (applesauce, puree, apple butter), baking
Available for picking: Usually beginning in early October
Newtown Pippin: This heirloom apple (New York, 1759) is said to be George Washington’s favorite apple. It is a tart, hard, green apple, plus being rich, aromatic, crisp, and coarse with creamy yellow flesh. This apple keeps well in a cool, dry place.
Uses: Fresh eating, desserts, cooking (applesauce, puree, apple butter)
Available for picking: Usually beginning in early October
