Crab Apples

 Last year I made some wonderful crab apple jelly and am aiming to do the
same again this year.

Trouble is hubby and I cannot agree on whether or not the apples are ready
to pick. They are very red and I am convinced they are ready. However hubby
says that because they are difficult to pick (ie they are not literally
falling off the tree), they are not ready

So who is right - when are they ready to pick

Thanks

Jeanne Stockdale

 

Depends how tart you like your jelly.  For cooking purposes, apples are
ready to cook as soon as they are big enough.   If you like them sharp,
cook them early: if you like them sweet:  later.

There are a lot of wasps about this year and the weather has been a bit
wild too: don't leave it too long or you will end up picking up windfalls.

I don't have a crabapple, but my early eater apples are mostly et now, and
the late eater apples are still a little tart, but nice.

The cooker still has a little way to go, but mostly only because it takes
less time to peel 4 fat apples than 6 skinny ones.

I had a party a week or so ago, and one of the participants brought with
them two bags of supermarket Braeburns from New Zealand!  Honestly!  No
doubt they'd been sitting in a cold store for months.  

I think I shall have to compost them.  They don't even make good crumble.

Victoria
--
gardening on a north-facing hill
in South-East Cornwall
--

 
|>
|> I had a party a week or so ago, and one of the participants brought with
|> them two bags of supermarket Braeburns from New Zealand!  Honestly!  No
|> doubt they'd been sitting in a cold store for months.  
|>
|> I think I shall have to compost them.  They don't even make good crumble.

In California, they are typically the BEST of the apples available
in a supermarket.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

 nmm1@cus.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren) wrote in


I'm sure the Braeburn is usually a fine apple.  

But to import them from NZ right at the start of the UK apple season? No
apple is going to be at its best with that kind of treatment (and compared
with apples picked fresh from the tree).

Victoria
--
gardening on a north-facing hill
in South-East Cornwall
--

 'Jeanne',

If you shake an apple and you can hear its pips rattle it is ripe.

Regards,
Emrys Davies.






literally