Golden Gate Garden

It's just a pile of freshly washed apples. Nothing special to look at. But I photographed these apples on March 26th, and they are the last of the apples I harvested from my tree last mid-October. So they have been in my fridge, in a plastic bag to prevent evaporation, for over 4 months. How are they? Firm, tasty, and not quite as sweet as they were after a month or two of storage.

The secrets of long storage of apples are 1. A variety that stores well, 2. Learning to pick at just the right time, 2. Cold storage in a container that reduces water loss.

So what variety are these? Unfortunately, we don't know, although two apple variety experts have examined fruit and leaf. They may be Baldwin, an old variety that is known to bear late in the season and store well. (The tree was planted before we owned the house, and there is no one to ask what they planted.)

As to picking at the right time, I pick when they still have green under the red streaks, but come off of the tree without twisting. At this stage they are hard, crisp and not as sweet as they will be later. As they ripen, in storage, they get sweeter for a long time, then lose a little sweetness at the end.

As I said, they have been in plastic, in the bottom of the fridge. I know plastic isn't the greenest material, but they were recycled bags and held up the whole time.

Oh, and one more thing: The apples were not bruised or injured in any way. That would have greatly increased the chance of decay. Still, I do lose a few every winter, so I have to take them out from time to time and check them over. This time, I threw away (composted) half a dozen, but that left 2 dozen–two weeks at an apple a day. I also washed the good ones and dried them before I put them back away, because some of them had a very thin layer of some dark gray surface growth here and there–some microbe that couldn't break through the skin. Maybe it was living on their waxy coating, but it did wash right off.

I eat these storage apples in nonfat yogurt with broken English walnuts. If the apple has lost too much sweetness, I add a light dribble of honey.

I often think about the fact that gardeners don't necessarily always eat their garden produce at its very freshest. Usually, yes, the garden produce I eat is fresher than what I can buy, often only minutes from being harvested, but sometimes not. When food is coming fast–too many cucumbers to give away–I may eat the one I picked last week up first, because I value any that I grew over ones I can buy, and don't want any to go to waste. (Though I must say that the more recently picked ones are probably still fresher than those from a grocery when I do get to them.)

And when I store the apples–well, when I buy an apple, I want it to be hard and crisp. One year, when some disease made our crop light, I went to the farmer's market every week in apple season and bought Fujis picked the night before. They sure were good. But I forgive the apples from my own tree for being a little tired by the end of March.

My tree is starting to leaf out. Chances are I will still have a couple of fruits from last year when the flowers open to make next year's crop. If I do, I'll take a picture.