I began to rate apples 10 years ago. My goal was to open an alternate "doorway" into my work, which had grown to include 125 apple reviews.
It's now my habit to rate the prior year's apples annually, rather than on the fly. I do so at the dead center of winter (today!), when there is not so much going on here anyway.
Farmers are not idle in winter, and neither am I. We plan and we prune and we fix.
Today I am pleased to announce the return of subscribe-by-email to Adam's Apples. Google dropped its built-in email service last summer.
|
| PHOTO: CAPTAIN ORANGE (CC BY-ND 2.0) |
Consider the Cherryfield apple, also known as Collins in its early years.
This is a Maine variety that was also identified, tentatively, with Benton Red, another apple from the Pine Tree State.
COMMENT OF THE DAY
If Sierra Beauty came from an apple seed discarded by a forty-miner, there’s a good chance he got that apple from [Henderson] Llewelling.
Grateful hat tip to John Henderson for his extended remarks on my review of the Sierra Beauty apple.
(Also for his neologistic "forty-miner.")
John says Llewellen contributed more to the North American apple industry than Johnny Appleseed.
The story follows, lightly edited (and with hyperlinks added by me).
Not a bad year for an apple blog that was supposed to end in 2009!
(That was the original idea.)
I got to review 17 apples in 2022, in large part thanks to the generosity of readers.
I have three of these extremely flattened beauties from Mike, a reader in Southern California. They are green and blushed, with pronounced ribbing and short thick stems.
If you've been reading my blog you know the answer.
You also know that this is a trick question.
Keim is German for "sprout."
This apple proved unusual in several ways.
You can see the very different shapes that are possible, one very oblate but only modestly ribbed, and the other a bit stocky and with ribbing so pronounced as to produce a distinct crease.
Despite the differences in shape, the apples share a small wash of red-orange blush over a very yellow spring green. The blush includes saturated spots of red pigment haphazardly at some of the lenticels.
Shown: The emblem of Clarkdale Fruit Farm in Deerfield.
|
|
"Last day of market" in Davis Square, Somerville, today.
|
The American Thanksgiving is tomorrow, which means that the urban markets here ended today.
