Adam's Apples

Travel has kept me from the early apples this year. I've missed the local farmers market where it is likely at least one vendor has offered Lodi or Vista Bella, or maybe even Pristine.  ¶  Left to right: Vista Bella, Yellow Transparent, Puritan.  ¶  This week, my wanderings took me past Red Apple Farm in Phillipston, Massachusetts, which did not disappoint.  ¶  About a minute after I took the above photo, I was eating one of those Vista Bellas. So fresh, so tart, so local , so good.

I was traveling last week, and thus missed farmers market, where there were probably some early apples: Lodi at least, and maybe Vista Bella .  ¶  I made it to an orchard on Friday. Things looked pretty good there!  ¶  Hutchins Farm, in Concord, Massachusetts, did not have any apples to sell yet, but will soon by the look of things.

Eighteen is something like 180 in internet years. I never imagined when I started this blog in 2008 (an experiment writing about "a year of apples" ) that I'd learn so much, or that I'd still be learning and blogging in 2026.  ¶  Possibly that year year-long commitment is what kept me going. I bagged 44 apples in the first six months (a number I have never matched in any subsequent full year). It would have been easy to quit when things inevitably got harder to write about in the winter.

After several years of neglect, these apple trees show signs of care.  ¶  Some are even bearing fruit:  ¶  The state of things at Nagog Hill Farm in Littleton, Massachusetts, last week.  ¶  Alas, the farm has moved on, an orchard no more.

Surrounded by the plastic and newsprint that kept it over the winter, this 2025 GoldRush apple proved still good to eat in June of 2026.  ¶  As things turned out, my eyes were bigger than my stomach when I squirreled away a score of these apples last fall to eat in April.  ¶  But no matter: GoldRush is a phenomenal keeper apple , still good in June. This is my last one.

" From now on I will no longer be a monogamous apple consumer; instead, I will be in a harem with bedfellows by the name of jazz, yello, pink lady and envy." That was one of several lessons learned by Nicholas Jordan, a Sydney food writer, after a group tasting of 16 apple varieties from local markets and grocers.  ¶  Not Australia: A tasting table at Clarkdale Farms in Deerfield, Massachusetts in 2016.