For a time around the turn of the last century the Pajaro Valley was considered the largest apple growing district in the United States. By some accounts the valley floor from Corralitos to Aromas was nearly carpeted with trees. The town of Watsonville itself was dominated by apple packing sheds, apple driers, and juice and vinegar factories.
By the middle of the century, as vast plantings in Washington and Oregon came into production, the tide had turned. Because there are fewer problems with apple diseases and insects, land and water are cheap and plentiful, and the apples themselves attain better color and size in the Pacific Northwest, growers here in the Pajaro Valley couldn’t compete. Strawberries, vegetables, and floral crops eventually replaced the apples and the majority of orchards were removed—pushed over by bulldozers and set alight in enormous piles.
And so it raised a few eyebrows when I announced four years ago that we were planting a new apple orchard. With the help of our friend Freddy Menge, a tireless advocate of rare and forgotten apples, we had grafted over 25 varieties onto trees that had been planted several years earlier as a demonstration orchard at our leased Redman House farmland. They bore fruit for the first time in 2007, and tasting some of the varieties was a revelation to me. That the selection available to us in supermarkets has been narrowed down to half a dozen or so varieties is certainly based on factors other than flavor because these apples had the most complex, juicy, delicious flavors of any I had ever tried. From the many varieties we tried there, we chose four to grow on a couple acres at our home farm.
Putting our steeper hillside slopes into perennial plantings makes perfect sense from a land management standpoint. Planting annual vegetables on these hillsides requires extensive tillage, exposing the soil to erosion. The apple trees, planted on contour, are perfect for holding the soil firm in the winter rains, with grass planted between the tree rows to provide protective cover.
Various apples will be coming into your boxes during this late summer and fall, as the different varieties mature. Most of the Redman orchard apples have only a few trees of each variety, so it is always a bit difficult to tell you exactly what kind you’ll be getting. This week those of you who get apples will be getting mostly Jonagolds from our home orchard, which, although a newer selection, have a fine sweet-tart flavor and also happen to be the variety that wins the gold most years in the apple pie baking contest at the Santa Cruz County Fair. The other varieties that we have planted here on our home farm are heirlooms–Rubinette, Waltana (named after a couple named Walt and Ana), and Hudson’s Golden Gem, which was first introduced in the 1930s. It is clear that the Golden Gem’s appearance alone has limited its popularity. While wholesale markets demand bright colors and shiny skins, the Golden Gem has a dull, rough, russetted skin and a brownish yellow color. Underneath that skin, however, is a sweet, crisp, pear-like flesh unlike anything I have ever tried.
The young trees in the orchard are bearing nicely this year, in spite of being hit by the usual scab and insect pests that affect almost all apple trees grown in this area. We’ll post pictures to help you identify the types you’ll be getting in future boxes as the other varieties come ready.
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