Core attributes of the perfect apple | The Canberra Times

I will divilge, though, that it’s a late variety, with deep red skin and ultra-white flesh, and probably began as an apple core thrown out of a horse-drawn cart, car, or even from a drover on horseback who had bought apples from the late Hector Coles’ orchards in Majors Creek. One of his many apple varieties was Democrat, very like though not entirely similar to the roadside feral tree.

Hector began selling his apples (and beans and potatoes and cherries) by horse and cart to Queanbeyan and the fledgling Canberra, but those who knew would call in at the farm from January to June for wooden boxes of apples. My earliest shelves, chairs and desk were made from wooden fruit boxes, fastened together or topped with an old door or cushion, as the need might be.

Hector grew early apples – January’s Gravenstein, I think, was his earliest commercial apple – but he had a couple of even earlier trees, with Democrat picked in May, an apple that is wonderful to eat fresh but still superb, though slightly different, three months later when the flesh is still crisp and sweet.

Just as there is no single ‘rose perfume’ – at least there isn’t if you are talking sniffing the flowers, not buying rose oil or rose-scented perfume – there is no one ‘apple flavour’. The mildly turpentine taste of a Gravenstein is entirely different from that of a Beauty of Bath or Earliblaze, or a Delicious or Golden Delicious, and that is before we even touch on the apples bred solely to be cooked, like Bramley Seedling or Twenty Ouncer that explode in a light appley froth, quite unlike the apples needed for a French-style apple tart that elegantly keep their shape when baked.

How do you know what apples you like best, the ones you might like to grow? The only way is to taste them fresh from the tree. Hunt out farm gate sales. Shop weekly at farmer’s markets, as apple season lasts from January to August and you may find a new ‘old variety’ to try each week. Keep an eye on apple crops ripening nearby, whether they be in gardens or by the roadside, and if you see a friendly gardener picking apples, politely ask if you might just try a slice. (You may well be given a bucket load).

This is the beginning of the richest part of apple season, February through March, as well as the ‘firm fleshed’ peach season, with the meatier orange fleshed varieties like Golden Queen, that look dull green and boring but have a floral firmness that is totally different from the delicate sunlit charm of early peaches.

Make a note of what you love, then put in an order to your local nursery or go online for specialist fruit growers. But never be content with ‘an apple.’ Life is far too short not to sample – and preferably grow – the best apple in the world.

1. Choose which of the 100 or so available contenders you want to give the prize to.

2. Find out what other varieties it needs to grow with to pollinate, and choose your favourite among those.

3. Plant both varieties in a well-drained spot that gets at least five hours of sunlight a day. This can be in a half wine barrel where the trees will ‘self-bonsai’ and become short and sturdy and bear well if, and only if, well fed and watered.

4. Feed in early spring and mid-summer; mulch well and water when dry. Compost and mulch fed trees are healthier and have a richer flavour, as do roadside trees that get sunlight reflected from the road, plus water run-off from the road, and sometimes with diluted cattle and sheep droppings too, as well as mulch from their own leaves.

5. Pruning will give you larger, more evenly coloured fruit but not necessarily a bigger harvest. Prune for easy access – or to keep low branches out of wallaby reach.

6. Cover with fruit fly netting when they are almost full size to keep off fruit fly, codling moth and birds. Don’t use bird netting – it traps birds and snakes.

• Cursing all bush rats. I picked two lots of the most gorgeous corn, then left the ripe cobs on the stalk this week because of rain, work, or lunch with friends – and today when I mooched up to pick the rest, every single cob has been eaten. Every. Single. One. It is possible to make ‘corn guards’ from metal or firm plastic to slip around each stalk so the rats can’t clamber over them, but – sod’s law- I didn’t this year. $@#*! all bush rats.
• Eating the first of this year’s Jonathon apples, one of my favourite apples, and still a week from ripe perfection, but I want to munch at least a few before Possum X decides to ‘share’ the harvest. (Possum X does not seem to have grasped the concept of ‘sharing’. True Johnathon apples are not the same as the ‘Red Jonathon’ now usually sold as Jonathon, which looks more tempting but lacks flavour and the correct texture.
• Watching the pumpkin vines sprawl with no help at all from me.
• Making a note to transplant the gladioli from the veg patch where they have multiplied before the leaves die back and I lose track of where the bulbs are.
• Rejoicing in the fattest clusters of hydrangeas I have seen for years, and about 4 million frogs.
• Muttering when three days of scattered grass seeds get washed in a slow tide down the paddocks in a storm that brings 22mm in eight minutes. But it is wonderful rain.