For those of you who care (and I suspect it’s a minority, although you’ve also been an extremely helpful minority), I think the apple tree in my backyard is a newtown pippin.
Gads, there are zillions of apple varieties! And apparently very few people curious about them. (When I put the most relevant discriptive terms into startpage, my own August blog entry popped to the top of the results. Very helpful, that. 😉 )
But newtown pippin is what fits best, even though I can’t decide whether the aroma is piney. Or not piney. Piney? Who knew that apples had their own version of wine snobs? Turns out apples can also have “vanilla overtones” or a “distinct flavor of cloves.” And here all these years I just thought they tasted and smelled like apples.
In any case, that’s about the best possible apple I could have inherited. It’s a late-harvest, ideal-keeper type that gets better after months of storage. It’s well-reputed for drying or cider — and it just happens to be exactly the sort of tart, firm apple I prefer.
Thank you again, brilliant commentariat, for your help on my search. (And furrydoc … I hope you don’t mind if I keep your ladder a few weeks longer; these apples apparently still have quite a ways to go before harvest.)
Oh, how wonderful! I would say it was more than your turn for some good luck. 🙂
I planted what was supposed to be a “Granny Smith” green cooking apple when I first got that place in the desert. Of course, it took several years for it to get large enough to fruit… and what did it produce? Rome Beauty… one of the few varieties I do not like at all. Go figure. They are super soft, poor keepers and taste a little like cheap perfume. YUK
Luckily, I had also planted a Johnathan and one of Fuji, both favorites. I ate the latter and gave away the Rome things. Everyone was happy. 🙂 Of course, the Rome Beauty outproduced everything else. Such is life.
Maybe you can start your own brand to compete with this 🙂
http://origsin.com/v4/the-ciders/newtown-pippin/
LOL, planting a Granny Smith (one of the bestest 🙂 ) and getting some soft, red mushy thing … ugh. Funny, though.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a Rome Beauty, but I can stand soggy red apples. Fuji, braeburn, cameo … mmmmm. Now those are perfect middle ground between the puckery greens and the sweet but pabulumy reds.
Oh, Johnathan … I love the name of that cider! Original Sin?
And that endorsement by Thomas Jefferson was something I ran into in my researches, too. Well, you actually can’t read about newtown pippins without running into it. But yeah, that’s one more reason to like this tree.
No problem! I also have a dehydrator and an apple-corer-peeler-slicer if you want to borrow. I would love to try some dried. BTW we have fresh smoked salmon and tuna if you want to try it. My boys have been busy.
Wow Claire, you’ve really got a good apple if that’s what it is. It probably won’t be ripe until mid to late October. One of the best for hard cider…and storage and drying. Great pies, dumplings, baked apples. Pippins are very old varieties, kind of tart, juicy apples. I have a Cox’s Orange Pippin. These apples tend to be biennial bearers, so don’t be surprised if your tree has lots of apples one year and few to none the next. Thinning young fruit and not letting the tree over-bear in good years can help even out the crop year to year but biennial bearing is just what they do. There might be an income for you in it – use Jackie Clay’s article on grafting, get some root stock from Raintree, and produce grafted trees to sell in front of your house or by mail order. If Raintree can sell grafted trees from one of Johnny Appleseed’s authenticated trees, I bet you can give your grafted trees a name that “resonates” with your readers and do as well. How about Claire’s Freedom Pippin? I would say sign me up for one, but my growing season is too short. I get a few Granny Smith apples about once every 10 years when the weather allows.
Claire and anyone else interested of course, see the March 15 2012 article at The Heirloom Orchardist abut the origin and history of the Newtown Pippin. They reprinted a 1902 article from Country Life in America and a photo of a 150 year old tree in Newtown.
Zelda — Wow, thanks for the really good information. I’ve always loved pippins, but only recently have I learned anything about their history and versatility (let alone that there were these different varieties of them).
And never even remotely thought of grafting or selling. With my reputation with growing things, I expect I’d have to name them “Claire’s Black Thumb.” 😉