I’ve finally finished all the preparations for seed and scion sales and auctions. I have more seeds than ever, including many cross pollinations using my own seedlings like Black Strawberry, Cherub and Appleoosa. This year Cherub and Cherry Crush scions will be sold in the store instead of by auction, because I just have a lot of them. Details and schedule below. Here is the video I just shot on all of that and talking a little bit about Cherry Crush, Appleoosa, January Russet and Hard Candy Cider.
CHERRY CRUSH
Cherry Cox x Grenadine. Larger than Cox’s Orange Pippin and Cherry Cox, with a better fine grained texture. It has some of Cherry Cox’s cherry flavor, which is the distinguishing characteristic of this apple, though it is not as strong so far as Cherry Cox. It has some pink flesh, though not a lot of “red fleshed flavor”. After this year, I would guess I’ll be eating more of these in season than either of those two apples. That is not to say it will be better everywhere. This is not a climate where the Cox’s perform well. Then again, maybe Cherry Crush will develop more similar complex flavors that those apples are known for when it is grown in other climates. The only way to find out is to get them out growing in many different places, which is the job of ya’ll beta testers. High potential for breeding red fleshed apples and cherry flavored apples. It has none of the negative characteristics often found in red fleshed apples like low sugar and mealy flesh. Can’t wait to see how these develop over time and just eat a lot more of them.
HARD CANDY CIDER
This is a Grenadine x Lady William’s cross from 2011. It is a cider and juice apple to be sure, with too much tannin for casual dessert eating. The flavor can be intense, like a bunch of hard fruit candies mixed together. The flavors I can remember picking out are purple grape and watermelon, but there is more going on than that. I even thought about calling it Jolly Rancher after the once popular American hard fruit candies. It’s my hope that all of that flavor will persist through fermentation and make amazing cider. We’ll see. As little as I make cider anymore, someone else might make that cider first. I think it has shown a hint of red flesh, but I honestly can’t remember. It is not likely to be a major characteristic of the apple anyhow. High potential for breeding intensely flavored apples, one of the groups I think should be avidly pursued by amateur breeders. Sugar 20 or 21% as measured here, which is in my mid to low range with my nearly dry farmed apples. Out of the seedlings in the trial rows that have potential for cider, this might be the most promising. I’d probably class it as a mild bittersweet. As an intensely flavored apple, it can probably compete with anything here.
APPLEOOSA
Grenadine x Lady Williams. This apple ranks in the top few grenadine seedlings for intensity of berry and punch type flavors, probably only matched by Black Strawberry and maybe even stronger. It originally fruited some years ago and was one of the first seedlings to fruit. It was nearly killed by voles and has never recovered. After eating one apple, I guessed it would end up being an improvement on it’s problematic parent Grenadine. I still think that and have been using it for breeding and sending out pollen ever since. Only about a half dozen or so people have gotten scions from me, mostly breeders and patrons. I had a few scions this year and I think it’s time to send it out. It’s a novel apple with high breeding potential and I have barely used Grenadine since Appleoosa fruited. The flavors are very similar to grenadine, complex, with lots of berry flavors. The flesh is solid pink through as grown here. I’m not sure of the ripening season yet. It’s been all over the place in the few fruits I’ve managed to get with all the circumstantial problems I’ve had growing it out. Looking forward to hearing what it’s like elsewhere, and hopefully tasting some of it’s offspring someday.
JANUARY RUSSET
This is a rustic little russet, and almost surely a Grenadine x Lady William’s cross. I think russets are pretty, but this one maybe not so much lol. It’s small hard and totally useless until it ripens in January. When I first found it fruiting in the trial rows I was sure I would cull it out! Then Chris Homanics and I were walking the rows in January and determined that it was shaping up and worth eating. When it is finally ripe, it’s still pretty rustic. The flesh is very firm, old school style, not like modern apples. It has a nice acid/sugar balance and can develop a very rich flavor. Probably a decent pie apple too. Tannins are still on the high side, but very edible. If you compared the phytonutrient and antioxidant levels of this apple to any modern variety available in stores, I’m sure it would be a total blood bath ha ha. Bottom line is that it’s another winter hanging apple to add to the fruits available off the tree in mild winter areas. If I had this ripe along with my two latest apples Lady William’s and Pomo Sanel, I’d probably eat a lot more of these than them. It doesn’t seem to crack, but it is not the most durable of the late hanging apples either. Another cool thing about January Russet is that it is the only winter hanging apple I have that is a real russet. It’s not completely russeted, but it has a lot, and it just has a russety character to it. I think it should be crossed with excellent russets like Golden Russet, Golden Harvey and Ashmeads to the end of creating an excellent winter hanging russet. It is probably also just a good choice in breeding for pursuing winter hanging apples in general, and I’ve made a few crosses using it already. I don’t think growing this anywhere that temps commonly dip below about 20 F is a good bet. It may ripen off the tree if picked in Dec or earlier but it doesn’t seem like a good bet. As I can recall so far, the flesh tends to go rubbery instead of mealy, a desirable characteristic found in some long keeping apples like Roxbury Russet, Golden Russet and Gold rush. I took pictures this year, but alas, I can find none of them.
Some details of auctions and sales:
Apple Scion Wood Auctions will be on https://FigBid.com this year instead of ebay. They seem like a pretty cool small outfit and I haven’t heard any complaints about the platform. They are all 5 days long and start and end 5 minutes apart. They start on four different days.
Feb 26th: Black Strawberry, first auction starts at 6:00pm Pacific Standard Time (PST) and then one every five minutes
Feb 27th: Hard Candy Cider and Sugarwood first auction starts at 6:00 pm
Feb 28th: Appleoosa and January Russet, 6pm
March 1st: Flaxen, 6pm
Scion and Seed Sales
The store will be password protected for Patron early access from Feb 26th AM till Tues. Mar. 2nd AM. If that’s enough incentive to join my patreon, here’s the address :) http://www.patreon.com/skillcult
First store access for 25.00 and up patrons starts Saturday morning Feb 26th at 8:00pm PST and on 25.00 and up tier also gets an ongoing 25% discount for all store purchases.
10.00 tier Sunday 27th 8:00 AM PST and on
5.00 tier Mon. 28th 8:00 AM PST and on
3.00 tier Tue. mar. 1st 8:00 AM PST and on
Open to general public Wed. Mar. 2nd AM
A list of most of scions and seeds in the store this year is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62710422
Descriptions of most apples I sell or use in breeding is here to do your homework ahead of time: https://skillcult.com/apple-variety-descriptions
It has been quite a process setting all this up, so I’m looking forward to moving on to spring stuff like pruning, grafting, pollinating, collecting pollen, trying to get in at least a small garden for the summer and many other horticultural and non horticultural projects and content. This year is about doing the right things to try to expand my audience and getting my income up enough to make payments on a new piece of land. This year’s auctions and plant sales will finally get me out of the red and above where I was financially when I started SkillCult something like 8 years ago. Yes please. We passed the expensive hobby phase of SkillCult into the at least making a minimum living. It’s time for the lets fund land and projects phase! I’ve been working a little bit on mapping out some of my current and hopeful future projects on new pages on the website. I want to map more of that out so goals are more clear. Right now, it’s a work in progress.
Happy growing, grafting and whatever projects you all get up to this season. <3
