Redfield Apple

2014

2014 was not a good year for fruit trees.  D was keeping an eye on the one plum on one tree.  It's no longer there.  His Redfield trees have one apple.  Here it is - picked before our resident deer population could discover it.

An unusual, red fleshed apple, developed in the late 1930's from a cross between the famously outsized WolfRiver apple and Niedzwetzkyana, an endangered apple from Kyrgyzstan.  Niedzwetzkyana is the ancestor of most, if not all, of the red fleshed apples now domesticated.

Redfield is used for cooking and cider, producing a blood-red cider of high flavor which, while normally blended, is used by West Country Cider to make an excellent single variety cider.  The jelly is also well regarded.

Redfield  sports red flowers and bronze colored leaves, a striking addition to any orchard.

Alas, it ripens in late October (and today is mid-September), so it's not ready to eat yet.

I wonder if the red increases as it ripens.



We had lots of mulberries.  (We left them for the birds.)  There were quite a few cherries, but each one had its own worm.  The beach plums have never fruited.  The birds got the elderberries.  One side of one apple tree (named Lazarus) has a few apples.  That's it.  Sad.

Tough year for apples.

2015 update

All the trees near the road have fruited.  The ones down the hill did not - we did get a 29º night in May.   The guess is that the cold air descended farther down the hill.

This is a young tree, so we are glad there aren't too many apples to stress the branches.

Isn't it lovely?

The inside is also lovely.

It is supposed to make a red cider.

We'll let you know - there are only a handful this year, though.