The harvesting of apples and plums continues. We picked the Transcendent crabs, the last of the Trailman and the Somerset of Maine. Then the Hanska plums, a thin-skinned, hardy, hybrid type introduced by Niels Hansen. I’m closely watching the Waneta, Gracious, Toka and Kahinta. They’ll all be next.

In the evening I extracted 27 dark brown seeds from three Wealthy apples that I had hand-pollinated with Redfield pollen last spring. Wealthy is an superior, late-summer/early-fall, all-purpose cultivar. For generations it was assumed to be a seedling of “Cherry Crab.” DNA profiling has shown it to be a cross between Duchess of Oldenburg and Jonathan. The original story purported that Peter Gideon of Minnesota obtained seed of cherry crab from a grower in from Bangor, ME. That never made sense to me. Duchess crossed with Jonathan does.

Both Weathy and Redfield are fantastic pie apples, and we all know the world needs way more apple pies. Twenty-seven new red-fleshed pie apple cultivars might just do the trick for early fall. But fret not, I’ve also crossed Redfield with Black Oxford. That should do it for your winter pies!