Adam's Apples

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.

SO FAR FROM THE HARVEST  ( GoldRush (L) and Empire ) ¶  The late spring used to be enlivened by imports of (relatively) fresh apples from Chile, New Zealand, and other points south .  ¶  Today these apples are swept away on the ebb tides of global commerce. (Tariffs? Hormuz Strait?) Things are a little bleak.  ¶  This year I've found myself gravitating to the last of my GoldRush from the fall, and, unexpectedly, Empire.

A friend alerted me to a short broadcast about apples that aired on Boston's WGBH radio last month.  ¶  The focus was on New England apples. It's streamable any time and available as a podcast.  ¶  The April 27 episode of Under the Radar with Callie Crossley includes a 25-minute interview with Amy Traverso and Sean Turley that quickly gets into the good stuff.