Varieties of Note
(Page 2 of 3)
October/November 1996
By the Mother Earth News editors
Sops of Wine harks to the Middle Ages. Red skin, white flesh with red net-veining. Good for eating, better for pies. Early to bear.
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Summer Rambo From 16th-century Europe. Big and dramatic with a striped skin. Good for eating; famous for applesauce. Ripens in August. Reputed to be Rocky's favorite.
Tolman Sweet is a traditional transparent-yellow-skinned summer cooking apple most notable for surviving and producing a crop after any winter weather that New England can throw at it.
Wealthy came from the Twin Cities area of southern Minnesota back in the mid-1800s. Brilliant red; bears reliably and heavily throughout the North.
Winter Banana has an aroma reminiscent of its namesake and keeps all winter in common storage. Yellow with a red blush. Fine eating.
Snow Apple (or Fameuse) is big, speckled red outside, and brilliant white inside. All-purpose, early-September ripener.
Peach Reliance was developed in New Hampshire. Survives below-30° and fruits reliably after winters of -20°.
Pear Starking Giant Asian (Stark Bros. exclusive) is a large round apple type pear that is good into zone 4.
Apricot Moongold and Sungold survive -20° winters. Ripen a week apart. Not self-pollinating, so you'll need at least one of each.
Nectarine Mericrest from the New Hampshire Experimental Station. Dwarfs are hardy to -20°. A self pollinator.
Plum Stanley is a large purple prune plum. Self pollinating. Dwarfs (on P. besseyi rootstock from Miller Nurseries) are hardy to -20°.
Cherry North Star is a semisour dwarf pie cherry originated in Minnesota.
Vivid flavor. Survives to -25°. Self pollinating.
Exotic Fruit
Humble Exotics We don't encourage you to plant much acreage to star fruit or loquats, but you might test a growing interest in "neglected native fruits." It's in part the same reaction to the homogenizing tendency of the TV age that's generated interest in regional cuisines such as Louisiana Cajun and Georgia Sea-Island Gullah. I hear they're even selling cookbooks for Midwestern meat loaf and Jell-O salad. But nurseries report growing demand for the following old-timers.
