Monday, February 18, 2013

Stalking Black Beauty apple

Good old Mother Earth News, still composting after all these years, has published Tom Brown's account of heritage-apple hunting in North Carolina.

Brown is a fruit detective after the manner of Southern heirloom hound Lee Calhoun, knocking on doors and searching newspaper archives to locate old apples and budwood.

Here's one I never heard of: Black Beauty, so called because its extreme susceptibility to sooty blotch renders it as black as coal (if not sprayed) when ripe.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Aligning the stars

Last summer I ranked the world of eating apples from zero to three stars.

Life does not stand still, fortunately, and it's time to make my first set of adjustments to these ratings.

I expect to do so annually about this time of year, when the trees are still sleeping and there's plenty of time for review and reflection.