Ashmeads Kernel - still the best but attracts gourmet pests.

[Vinlander]

I think it's time for me to highlight "Ashmeads Kernel" an apple with the perfect balance between sweet & sharp but also both crisp and juicy.

A lot of experts think it is the best apple in the world & I agree
with them. I also agree with the increasing number of US enthusiasts who grow it because flavour is more important than "not invented here". If I recall it is a Gloucestershire apple that achieved fame in the mid 1800s.

It's becoming easier to find in nurseries since the RHS gave it an Award of Garden Merit for being trouble-free with an amazing flavour - (and sometimes a hint of pear).

It's appearance really should be of no interest whatsoever - the 7 most important things about any apple  should be the flavour, the flavour, the flavour, crispness, juicyness, reasonable cropping (if there are no fruit at all there's no flavour), & no need to mollycoddle or spray.

(Unlike Cox's Orange Pippin which needs a spray regime that most amateurs wouldn't be allowed to use).

I will say this about Its appearance - it's nothing special,  even nondescript. This can be an advantage. Nobody's going to say "I know that one - get me a bag right now while nobody's looking".

Sadly, the ring-necked cockatoos (which ought to be wrung) can smell the flavour as they fly by.

My tree's fruit started to show a slight blush in October, so I thought the next time it stops raining I'll bring my ladder & pick those. 3 days later I went back and the whole upper hemisphere of ripe fruit had disappeared completely. So more than 50% of the crop was gone with only a few leaves, a few twigs and empty branches left in that hemisphere, with the occasional dangling halves or quarters of apples that looked like they'd been hit with an axe.

I set to picking everything left whether it was ripe or not, and ended up with about 15kg of ripe & 20kg of unripe (netting the tree would have been impossible - even if I could find steel mesh hard enough to beat those beaks).

I finished the job just before the flock returned at sunset. I've never heard such screaming & chatter - they were obviously furious to lose 'their' favourite resource.

It was deafening for about 15 minutes before they shot away into the dusk, screaming as they went - the weird thing was that there were plenty of other ripe apples I could see on other plots, but they chose to ignore them - maybe they knew of another Asmeads' to the NE. 

I had to take a lot of kit back home that day so I only took about 5kg of apples and left the rest hanging in 2 big tarp-type bags inside the polytunnel, with whole newspapers on top held down with planks.

The next day I could see the ripe bag had been raided, the covers lifted and a top layer of a dozen fruit left shredded in various states of mad axe attack.

That's it until next year.

Of course there is a dark side to the trouble I've taken to bring this story to you - PLEASE for your own sake and mine put an Ashmeads in your plot or garden. It really is the best, (unless you prefer supermarket apple pie to fresh apples) and the more people that have trees the more likely you'll get a good crop even if you do have parakeets.

The wring-their-necks parakeets have to eat all year, so there won't be any more of them because of a week or so of more Ashmeads.

Please help everyone to get a bigger crop for themselves by collectively growing a bigger crop than the damned pests can cope with.

Especially if you are in London - Please.

Cheers.

PS. Don't assume that keeping apples improves the flavour - it doesn't. If the apples are ripe eat those first - to paraphrase a music expression - "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that Zing".

Ashmeads have been a noted keeper for hundreds of years because their crisp sharpness fades more gradually than most - but eventually like all apples they end up bland. We don't need to store apples any more, because fresh apples are available all year round. In spring I eagerly wait for the NZ Braeburns to arrive in perfect condition - with zing.

But Beware - the growers in UK & France cottoned on to this years ago - they are lurking in the background, and release their stored Braeburns as soon as the NZ ones appear - and despite high tech storage they really ain't got that ZING!

Supermarkets know they will make more profit if they hide where these apples came from - and by blurring the distinction they confuse the learning process that makes customers more picky.

[Vinlander]

[Vetivert]

An ode to Ashmead's Kernel indeed! I'd love to have more apples on the plot but our site is infested by the codling moth - tonnes of fruit drops early or rots on the trees, every single apple has a bloody worm.

[Vinlander]

I apologise for my obsession, but I have noticed that some resistance to maggots is one of the weird things that Ashmeads does - it's not foolproof, but if you look carefully it's obvious that some of the early holes in an Ashmeads heal up really well and don't go mouldy - they are very hard apples when they are young.

When you finally pick them ripe and slice them to eat you see that the holes are still there but only as a a scar that stops about 25-40mm inside. It's very much as if the young maggot was crushed &/or smothered to death.

Other really hard apples like Sturmer Pippins also seem to have less problems with maggots but most have a much tougher skin than Ashmeads.

BTW a Sturmer is like a super Granny Smith - much more flavour and usually sweeter & sharper - often called "a delicious but steely acidity".

Cheers (for heritage apples that put flavour first, not for new ones that put yield first).