I agree, Jazz is nothing short of excellent, and is certainly one of the top 3 best supermarket apples. I also love Honeycrisp and Fuji but those are more on the sweeter side, of course. Hard to beat the zip of the Jazz.

I use Microsoft Excel. You can also try our host site, www.orangepippin.com, as they have a place for tasting notes.

Most people are going with the pyramid / central leader form these days, but really it is totally up to you what you think is best.

Blending is an art and I'm sure I will never quite figure out the exact right combination of the different types of apples. However, through experimentation in separately pressing about 30 different kinds of apples, I have been able to determine quantitatively which apples have: 1) the most juice pe...

I think Kingston Black is a delicious apple for eating as well as for cider. I think it tastes great as a sweet cider as well as hard.

I agree with the scoring idea. It doesn't always work, maybe only 30-50% of the time, but it can help. The other option is to prune back a heck of a lot harder into old thick wood. This should spawn a lot of branching, if it doesn't kill the branch. Be sure to maintain a nearby nursing branch to be ...

I love the Arkansas Black, and it is a very good keeper. Also I love Wealthy, and Swiss Gourmet (a.k.a., Arlet). If memory serves, Wealthy is a good keeper. Swiss Gourmet doesn't keep as long, but is very tasty and sweet, and the most gorgeous apple I have ever seen -- looks very much like a nectari...

The first does look like Blenheim Orange. The second closely resembles Orleans Reinette. The third looks just like a McIntosh. The more important question is: How do they taste!? That will be the way to confirm anything based solely on the appearance. A lot of apples look alike, but we could be WAY ...

Fameuse (Snow) apples are not good keepers. The only place you *might* be able to find them right now is if there were any places in the southern hemisphere like in Australia. Otherwise you will need to wait until October like everyone else.

From a good old Wisconsin boy here... I have seeked out and tasted dozens of ciders from all over. My favorites have all been from outside of the USA. Gaymer's from Britain, County Cider from Canada, St. Nicolas from France, Magner's from Ireland -- these are all outstanding, when I can find them, w...

It is often said that crabapples make the best pollinators, as they produce more flowers than regular apples. However, basically any other apple variety besides Arkansas Black will work fine. Just will take a few years for a new tree to grow. Alternatively, you could try grafting a few scions of a d...

Opal apples are fantastic. This is another one of those special release apples, sort of like SweeTango or Lady Alice, where special licenses (or similar) are required to grow and there are a limited number available, so there's only a handful of growers, at least for the first few years. But I can v...

Grafting onto choice rootstock will work to make a new tree. Cuttings might also work although I have not seen this done much with apples. Pips will NOT work, as the child tree will be entirely different from the parent. Apples are like humans -- the child usually does not bear exact resemblance to ...

I recently heard a rumor that hickory trees (as well as other nut trees?) produce chemicals that inhibit the growth of anything else nearby. I would validate this, and if true, yank out your hickory, roots and all, if that is the issue.

Looks like medlars, which are not apples but very closely related. I have never tasted them myself, but based on what I have read they are delicious. You cannot eat them like an apple but rather you need to let them age for a few weeks. After they turn to mush they are supposed to taste sweet like a...