We have been trying to decide what fruit trees to plant in the backyard this year, and while there has been a lot of back and forth on some things, we have always been sure that we are going to plant a lot of apple trees. We love apples around here, and want some that are good for canning, eating fresh, juicing and also apples that are good for storage. A trip to our favorite nursery the other day gave us a chance to see what trees they had and make some decisions. I brought the list home, and looked all the varieties up online to determine what would best fit our needs. Then kids and I took the list to New Seasons to see what they had in stock, so we could hold an apple taste off to help us with our final decision. We found 4 of the apple varieties that we had found at the nursery; Braeburn, Fuji, Pink Lady and Gala - we bought one of each.
In place of snack that night we did our apple taste testing:
There was some debate on the tartness and firmness of some of the varieties, but in the end there were two clear winners; Gala and Fuji. The Gala is good for fresh eating, pies, juice, apple butter and is apparently one of the best for making apple sauce. The Fuji is good for fresh eating, cooking, sauce and pies. The Fuji is also a good storage apple.
The plan is to go tomorrow and pick up those two trees, as well as a Pluot tree. We are hoping to get find two trees that they didn't have at the nursery, a Honeycrisp and a Jonagold. I need to call around and see if we can find them locally, otherwise we will need to order them online and I really don't want to do that. The trees will be smaller and take longer to produce, so hopefully I will have some luck finding them closer to home. I cant wait until we are picking beautiful organic apples from our own backyard!
In place of snack that night we did our apple taste testing:
There was some debate on the tartness and firmness of some of the varieties, but in the end there were two clear winners; Gala and Fuji. The Gala is good for fresh eating, pies, juice, apple butter and is apparently one of the best for making apple sauce. The Fuji is good for fresh eating, cooking, sauce and pies. The Fuji is also a good storage apple.
The plan is to go tomorrow and pick up those two trees, as well as a Pluot tree. We are hoping to get find two trees that they didn't have at the nursery, a Honeycrisp and a Jonagold. I need to call around and see if we can find them locally, otherwise we will need to order them online and I really don't want to do that. The trees will be smaller and take longer to produce, so hopefully I will have some luck finding them closer to home. I cant wait until we are picking beautiful organic apples from our own backyard!