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  • From: "Brungardt, Sam" <Sam.Brungardt@state.mn.us>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Best keeping apples?
  • Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 13:45:26 -0500

Title: Message
Jim, it's probably not hardy in your neck of the woods, but Baldwin would be one of the apples that stored for a very long time in common storage. -- Sam Brungardt, St. Paul, Minn.
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Erdman, Jim [mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Erdman, Jim
Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2005 12:40 PM
To: North American Fruit Explorers
Subject: Best keeping apples?

The current discussion of earliest ripening apples is interesting, and it occurred to me that I would like more info on good keeping apples.  I ate the last of our Fireside apples from the 2004 crop on the 4th of July.  I was cleaning out part of the root cellar and discovered a bag of moldering Northwestern Greenings and also one lone last Fireside in another bag.  (We store our apples in large plastic bags, in cube-shaped plastic milk crates, in the root cellar portion of our basement.)
The Greenings may have had some usable parts, but sorting through them didn't appeal to me, but the Fireside looked good except for a little wrinkling on a spot or two, and was a bit soft to the touch.  There was a nice crunch to it when I took a bite, and the flesh was still tasty but a bit coarser than earlier in the winter.
I haven't had apples keep much past May in the past (although that is partly due to eating them all earlier in the winter, also).  We store them in a room of the basement that is completely divided from the heated part of the house, and it is cooled in the fall by opening a window when it starts to cool off outside.  It gets near 33 degrees or so in cold weather (January-February) and is about 55 to 60 degrees F now.
I suspect that part of the reason our apples kept better this year is that I was careful to cool them after picking (the weather co-operated for that) by moving them in and out of the garage or barn as needed to take advantage of cool nights in the fall.
I also had Melrose and Yellow Newtosh keep past the New Year, but don't recall when the last of them were used.
 
So, my question is, what other apples are keeping into the spring under similar conditions to my root cellar?
 
Jim Erdman, in Menomonie, WI



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