Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - [NAFEX] Earliest Ripening Apple Mystery

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Jim Fruth <jfruth@uslink.net>
  • To: <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Earliest Ripening Apple Mystery
  • Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2005 07:50:08 -0500

When I first moved here (North-Central Minnesota), I planted two apple
trees. Not wishing to have a whole trees of fruit ripe all at the same
time, I grafted three different apple varieties on each tree. I obtained
wood from the, then, Bear Creek Nursery. I ordered wood by following their
guide of ripening times, selecting six varieties so that ripening would
start in Late July, then Early August, Mid August, Late August, and so on.
Trouble is that ripening times here turned out to be very different than
what the "book" indicated. I do not have the ripening sequence that I had
hoped for: A "Late August" variety, Parkland, ripens first and the one that
was listed as ripening first, in "Late July", Irish Peach, ripens last of
all.
When I started selling apples at a local farmers' market, I learned that
customers refused to buy apples with unfamiliar names - added to the
ripening sequence mystery was the appearance of the fruit so I could
(re)name my apples with familiar names and folks would buy them. Irish
Peach and Dudley both ripened to a brilliant green, instead of their normal
colors so I got away with calling both "Granny Smith" and people bought them
and came back for more.
One more strange quirk is worth mentioning. Quinte doesn't want to grow
upright; it wants to lay on the ground. It sort of grows upright only
because I have props under the branches and support ropes from above.
--

Jim Fruth
Brambleberry Farm
Pequot Lakes, MN
www.bberryfarm.com







Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page