Monthly musings: Early apples (August)

Imagine sinking your teeth into a ripe, firm English apple. The best ones you’ll ever taste are those from your own garden. And if yours is an early variety you can start enjoying them right now; they are at their best eaten straight off the tree in August and early September. You might just as well tuck in, since – unlike later varieties - they don’t keep.

The very earliest ‘early’ of all is a rare old variety called ‘Gladstone’. It’s a rather small light green apple with a red flush and scattered reddish streaks or stripes; the flavour isn’t in the absolute top rank, but its huge advantage is that you can start eating it earlier than just about any other apple – from late July – and it’s at its best till around the middle of August. But its big disadvantage is the rather short ‘best eating’ season – just three weeks.

Another old rarity, ‘Irish Peach’, was a great favourite with Victorians and Edwardians, and looks unlike any modern apple – yellowish with a faint rosy flush. The fruit has a superb, complex flavour and faint perfume – though evidently it can be a bit variable in quality depending on growing conditions and weather. It’s at its best in August.

'George Cave’ is much better known among grow-your-own apple fans. It’s one of the very best-tasting early apples, pale green with a reddish flush plus some streaks and stripes and, again, at its best throughout August. Its main drawback is that it flowers early, so pollination may not be great unless there are other early flowering apples (or crab apples) nearby. A late frost can put paid to the crop.

Next in line is ‘Discovery’, which has a ‘best eating’ season from late August to mid-September. It’s very well known; a hugely popular variety that appears briefly in most greengrocers' at the end of summer. The small, sweet, bright rosy red apples really stand out in the shops and are popular with children - though if you grow your own you’ll know they are martyrs to wasps.

But a real old favourite is ‘Worcester Pearmain’. The apples are red with small patches of yellow showing through, and it has a great flavour with a hint of strawberry. It’s at its best in September, though anyone who enjoys a sharp crunchy apple usually finds them perfectly edible from late August. If you want a dual-purpose variety, the new September-ripening ‘Tickled Pink’ that’s suitable for both cooking and eating is worth checking out. It produces crisp, red-skinned fruit with a good flavour.

The best way to check if an early variety is ready to eat is simply to pick one and cut it in half; if the pips in the centre have turned buff or brownish-tinged it’s worth risking a taste. But if the pips are pure white, you’re probably a tad too early and the flesh will be rock-hard and so tart-tasting you’ll wince.

If you’re looking for an apple tree to grow at home, make it an early variety. Better still, invest in a family tree, which is especially grown so that each branch produces a different variety of apple, which can include a couple of earlies and several later-ripening varieties, all chosen so they’ll pollinate each other. You can find free-standing family trees, or espalier trained ones. For example, an upright, single-stemmed duo-cordon comprising the aptly named ‘Scrumptious’ early variety that’s self-fertile and the later ‘Red Falstaff’ that’s both tasty off the tree and stores well. And while they aren’t cheap, you’ll pack an awful lot of apples into a small space. Bon appetit!