Apples on the Web: New England Apples

Since 1998, the New England Apple Growers Association has united growers and promoted native fruit.

Photo: NASA

The association's web page, launched in late 2008, describes 64 158 of the more than 200 varieties that grow here, including many heirlooms. It lists orchards, recipes, and its own set of links, and offers other information to the hungry and curious.

If you'd like to know where to buy some of these apples, the "find a farm" search will let you discover, for instance, that Esopus Spitzenberg is available from Champlain Orchards in Vermont. Update: Unfortunately, this feature is no longer available, but you can search by location.

I particularly enjoyed the three breezy videos (links on the video page), shot at Apple Hill Farm in New Hampshire, in which owners Chuck and Diane Souther describe apple varieties old and new. There's also a three-part video tutorial on making an apple pie.

Regular followers of my blog may notice some familiar faces in the Association's gallery of apples, at least for this spring.

Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in 1831 and famously found a nation of civic groups. In keeping with that tradition, the association provides services for its member farms and the apple-eating public, including supermarket promotions, an annual meeting, a lending library, and a newsletter, the McIntosh News.

Update: The Association's leadership also has a blog, also called New England Apples. As of the end of 2014, the web page had grown its catalog of apples to include 158 varieties.