Black skinned apples

RustBeltCowgirl
RustBeltCowgirl Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

This is interesting. It's actually a heritage apple.

$20 per apple?! 😲

Comments

  • kbmbillups1
    kbmbillups1 Posts: 1,390 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Wow! As my dad used to say - that (apple) better be made of gold for that price.

  • water2world
    water2world Posts: 1,177 ✭✭✭✭

    @RustBeltCowgirl WOW $20.00 an apple!!----I just want a taste! lol

    I have never heard of this variety either!

  • vickeym
    vickeym Posts: 2,134 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Had never heard of this variety. Went and looked it up for seeds and most of the pictures showed a much redder apple that what is pictured. Sounds like it is a great storage apple and is even better for use the following year after harvest. Apparently the first season it is quite hard and bitter.

    There were a few sites selling this as a small tree, some at a not too terrible price. Though even though it showed hardy in zone 4 and higher one site claimed it was suited for my zip code and listed us as a 4 instead of the 3b that we actually are.

  • annbeck62
    annbeck62 Posts: 1,028 ✭✭✭✭

    Wow even if it was the best apple I've ever tasted, I don't think I could ever get myself to spend $20 for one apple.

  • judsoncarroll4
    judsoncarroll4 Posts: 5,490 admin

    I've had Arkansas Black apples! They are great, but I have to say pippins are still my favorite. Where I live, tons of old homesteads were taken through imminent domain for the national forests, the TVA and the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was a horrible betrayal of everything Americans fought for... really, part of punishing the South for rebelling. Anyway, I find hundreds of old sites where homesteads where. Sometimes I find a bit of an old chimney, but I most always find old apple trees. These are trees that, mostly, have no name. Some of those apples are absolutely amazing... all are good for cider and pies!

  • Torey
    Torey Posts: 5,679 admin

    I had seen a show about the Tibetan apple a couple of years ago but didn't know anything about another black skinned variety growing in the US.

    @vickeym It would be an interesting experiment to try and grow both varieties in Alaska. The Tibetan one is grown at quite a high elevation. So maybe somewhere up in the St. Elias Mountains close to the coast. It is supposed to be the extra UV that the apples are getting that high up in the mountains in Tibet, as well as the shorter growing season with the overnight cold temps. So I think Alaska would cover those growing requirements. Not likely that we'd be able to get plants for that species, though. The Arkansas Black would certainly be an easier one to acquire.

  • Merin Porter
    Merin Porter Posts: 1,026 admin


    @judsoncarroll4 that's really a great idea -- looking at old, abandoned homesteads for apple trees. I'll bet there are some AMAZING heritage apples in those places. We have a few apple trees on our property, and one of them has really amazing pie apples. We're pretty sure it's a Northern Spy apple tree. Anyway, it seems to produce a couple years on and then take a year off, and this year was an off year. So I missed those pies last season, but I'm looking forward to this fall! :)

  • judsoncarroll4
    judsoncarroll4 Posts: 5,490 admin
    edited February 2022

    Check these folks out - they are just 2 counties over from me - they specialize in heirloom apples