Adam's Apples

I jumped into this blog at the start of the harvest in 2008 , eager to see what farmers market had in store. There have been pleasant surprises every year, and I have always tried to fulfill my promise to share wonder without adding too many frills.

In this photograph, Lodi (left) and GoldRush clasp hands across the seven barren months that divide one harvest from another. Lodi , the tapered green fruit at left, is the harbinger of the new harvest, the first and only apple at farmers market. GoldRush was picked last October and has spent its days in my mudroom and refrigerator. Let's see how they compare.

The cupboard is bare at Nagog Hill Farm yesterday.

There's Lee Calhoun , who chased the old apples and their stories across the south. He rescued 400 varieties from near extinction though the primal wizardry of jamming a stick from the old tree into the rooted trunk or branch of a younger one and making them live on as one. Magic. Tom Burford plowed similar turf, while John Bunker did (and does) much the same in Maine. No American state has a finer apple heritage.

This bag held my stash of Gold Rush apples for two and a half seasons. It smells wonderful.

I've learned a lot by comparing apples, eating and weighing two different breeds together. Sometimes these head-to-head contests are lighthearted, sometimes for higher stakes, and sometimes to settle specific questions (such as, "is this early Mac very Mac-like?"). I almost always learn something new. Turns out, I've held more than 30 of these contests. Here are some of the more interesting ones.

Photographed June 11 I'm still eating the Gold Rush apples I laid down last Halloween and began eating in April.