I had my first ripe Cortland apple off the tree today. It’s a cool dry windy bright day and the red fragrant apples draw you to them, crying out to be eaten. The burst of flavor only a fresh tree ripened apple can provide envelopes your taste buds and overloads them with sweet and tart at the same time, while the juice runs down your chin. The McIntosh is almost bare, and the ones left on it are larger than any McIntosh I’ve seen before. The weather was idea for apples, so you should find some really tasty large ones this fall as you drive around looking at changing leaves on the way to the apple orchard. Walking into a large building full of apples is a smell that you will seek out each fall afterwards. Once there you try some apples and pick up a few bags, maybe buy a couple squash , pumpkins, indian corn, and gourds. The right orchard might have some apple pies and caramel apples ready to eat and cider to drink. This is a leisurely journey to soak up some of the last best days of fall. Lip smacking good. Don’t forget to stop at the local winery. Wine, apple slices, fresh grapes, fresh cheese, and bread what a meal that makes. Add in a little beef tenderloin from the grill. Are you slavering yet?
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Already done.
Lucky you … the (few, but not bad) apple trees we have out here in eastern Kansas aren’t producing this year, due to unusual weather conditions in the spring and early summer.
I recall buying a crateload of great apples (not sure what variety) around Baraboo, Wisconsin one October years ago. Are you anywhere near there?
We travel from Portage through the Caledonia Bluffs, and maybe stop at Owen Park which overlooks Lake Wisconsin. I worked and played in the fields of the Caledonia Bluffs. We got cold water from an artesian spring on the border of one field. The woman of the farm that owned the field had no shame and sometimes would run feed to the chickens without a top. We might stop at Parfrey’s Glen or Durwood’s Glen, and likely Devils Lake for a hike. We’ll stop at Ski-Hi Fruit Farm next to Devils Lake. They have all the extras like the pies and caramel apples. There used to be many more orchards between Portage and Baraboo. There was a farmer along highway 33 that made sorghum and somebody did a television show about it. It takes a lot of people to make sorghum. He was going to stop doing it, so he’s likely done now.
We may stop at Bohl Orchard by Poynette on the way to Madison. You can plan a trip to the Poynette Game Farm and get the apples at the same time.
Since we’re talking Wisconsin apples here, does anyone know if the Gays Mills apple festival is still happening this year? Gays Mills had millions of dollars of damage when the Kickapoo River flooded basically the entire town earlier in August. I wouldn’t be surprised if they canceled the festival, just because the town can’t support it at this point.
I miss good apples … when I used to live in Ohio we would get wine sap apples in the fall that were divine …
Honeycrisp
soon…my precious…my honey crisp
man I can’t wait.
almost Honeycrisp season
HONEYCRISP SEASON
didn’t you people hear me!!!
They are mine…all mine!!!
I don’t even really like apples, but I picked up two organic Pink Lady apples at the store the other day.
YUM!
When I went back for more, they were all gone. 
I am trying to eat more healthily, and I want more pink ladies in my lunch.
Also a toast to the heritage varieties. What poetic names they have, too.
Amen to that. The perfect apple.
Oh, Harmonious, you bring back memories of my student days in Madison. Devil’s Lake was my favorite place for hiking, skiing, or lying on the rocky bluff tops, or on the grass near an Indian mound, pretending to study.
(Hijack over)
Here in the Finger Lakes, color change is starting. Flocks of wild turkeys go across the lawn, and deer come to eat windfalls from a wild apple tree in front of my big windows.
But as for apples, the best ones come from the Cornell University orchards. The students tend the trees lovingly, and there are various heirloom varieties available at the orchards, and experimental varieties in the process of development, as well as the standards. My current favs are Crispins and Honeycrisps, and Macouns, along with Cortlands and Rome Beauties… ummmmm, New York apples…
One apple that I liked a lot was Snow, but most places that grew them have cut them down. They are small and have sweet white flesh that turns red as it sweetens on the tree into fall. Ski-Hi Fruit Farm has them. The Cortland are perfect for caramel apples, because they are slightly tart and firm, their great for pies too. Always leave a few apples on the tree to sweeten in the cool late autumn nights. The sugar content goes through the roof. I love the Rome too.
The Honeycrisps are just about done here - we’ve been eating them for weeks. Before that were the Ginger Golds, which were also ripe unusually early this year. Song of September is coming up, but there aren’t as many as usual on the trees. Now that the Ginger Gold are but a memory, I’ve got my eye on the Liberty trees.
Bastards, all of you. Thanks to a nice big springtime frost, there probably isn’t a real apple within 100 miles of here.
(mutters to self)
Wollersheim Winery in Sauk Prairie didn’t have a festival last year, and none are planned for the future.
Wo-Zha-Wa Days will be Friday trough Sunday September 14th through the 16th in Wisconsin Dells.
The Warrens Cranberry Festival is September 28th through the 30th.
Wisconsin is the largest producer of cranberries and this is the largest festival in the U.S.
The Gays Mills Apple Festival is September 28th through the 30th Their site has nothing on a cancellation. You would want to check that in a month before driving there I would think.
http://www.gaysmills.org/apple.html
MMM… apples.
Apples to make pie, cobbler, sauce, jelly, or to eat fresh.
My top apple picks:
- Stayman Winesap
- Honeycrisp
- Jonagold
- Empire
- Rhode Island Greening
- Paula
I’m in luck, I’ve got plenty of orchards around me, so I don’t have to travel too far. I have traveled 35 minutes, and it was worth it for all the variety they had, plenty of heritage types that were very interesting to try. The Apple Festival is the weekend after next around here.
They have great apples in New Zealand. The braeburns are possibly the best I’ve ever eaten.
Give them six months, they’ll taste even better.
I never buy apples any more. I’m way too spoiled after having had the opportunity to pick them off the trees. Apples seem to deteriorate at a spectacular rate once picked. Either that or all fruit stands, supermarkets and etc are convinced that what we want is an apple with the taste and texture of particle board shavings suspended in sugar water.
The apples I remember best were nonshiny, roundish, kind of green but with peach-to-red blush, and had little tiny speckles which were tactile as well as visual. Nice crunch when you bit into 'em, almost as tart as a granny smith on first bite but with a fantastic sweet second taste. Dense. Small tight core.
Coach, they’re killing me out there.
Best we can do here is old, sometimes very old, Fujis and sometimes Galas. Hopefully with no mould growing around the stem.
Nothing better than a fresh, crisp apple…never heard of a Honeycrisp, it sounds positively orgasmic. Where’s the Jealous icon?
Oh, yes, the groceries stores in the US sell New Zealand apples, and I will buy the braeburns when our own are out of season. They are good, and I’d like to try them in New Zealand, when they haven’t endured long shipment.
But new, fresh, local apples…going by farmstands where they have them and other fall produce by the bushel, and the smell of cider if they have a cider mill on the premises…hot apple cider with a cinnamon stick when it’s cold and frosty outside…and fresh-made apple donuts… the smell of dried up leaves crunching underfoot…Okay, I’m jumping into October here, but oh, this is the best time of the year…
Apple crisp. Must make apple crisp soon…