Cloud Mountain Farm Harvest 2005 Report

[jinian]

Apples
"Zestar" -- Medium tart.
"Roger's Red McIntosh" -- Very full appley flavor, tart.
"Ambrosia" -- Flat but okay.
"Jubilee Fuji" -- Lovely, tart.
"Beni Shogun Fuji" -- Sweet, flattish, a little mealy.
"Rubinette" -- Gorgeous, high flavor, crisp. *
"Red Alkemene" -- Soft, but good medium flavor.
"Queen Cox" -- Crisp and very tart. *
"Florina" -- Balanced, crispish.
"Golden Russett" -- Astringent yet sweet. Juice?
"Yellow Bellflower" -- A tarter "Ginger Gold". *

Conclusion: Give me Cox's Orange Pippin crossed with about anything, or a variety grown since the 1700s, and I'll be happy.
Purchased: Two 5# bags of Elstars and one tart mix including more Elstars and some Karmijn de Sonnevilles, yum. Pie city.

Pears
Skipped due to not actually liking pears all that much. citrine does and ate some, but I don't think she made notes.

Grapes
"Neptune" -- Green, no seeds noted. Back-of-mouth big tart. *
"Lynden Blue" -- Deep blue, seeded. Concordish.
"Reliance" -- Light plum. Canonically grapey.
"Jupiter" -- Purple. Rounded, pervasive flavor.
"Canadice" -- Beautiful red. Tart.

Others
Cornus kousa fruit -- Ugh. The scaly-feeling skin is bitter, and the custardy interior isn't all that great either. Interesting that there's one large seed in an obvious aggregate fruit, though, just I'd rather dissect it than eat it.
Mulberry "Oscars" -- I am not used to mulberries. I think I like them.
Cornus "Cornelian cherry", variety "Pioneer" -- Very like sour pie cherries. Great. Pie!
Aronia berries -- Astringent and weird, but jelly ++.
Jostaberry (black currant and gooseberry?) -- Tart and lovely.

Didn't see any pie pumpkins, though I forgot to look very hard.

Also available: Cloud Mountain Farm Harvest 2004 Report

(The Greater Vancouver Zoo was quite charming though low-tech, and it's hard to top five baby capybaras. Further, A&W root beer is even better in Canada.)

Comments

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm jealous - I meant to try to make it up there this year and forgot. Is it usually the first weekend in October, or does it vary?

I planted two currants and a gooseberry-currant cross (not Jostaberry - an Orus-8, I think) this year and am impatiently waiting for them to mature and bear fruit.

Baby capybaras! Must go to Vancouver!

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Pears: I had a piece of bosc, which was OK. I do like pears but there were a lot of people around there and seeing the employees with their steely knives right by their hands while they were talking and not looking at what they were doing was making me nervous (really!) so I went ahead to the serve-yourself grapes.

Zoo: Free with a WPZ id. free Xmas day, worth supporting in any case:

[rubricity.livejournal.com]

(They're open today too for the harvest festival.)
It's usually the first weekend of October or last weekend of September. There is a certain amount of variation. Around mid-september, I check their website (http://www.cloudmountainfarm.com/) or you can get on their mailing list and get their catalog and they'll send you a notice.

[rubricity.livejournal.com]

Conclusion: Give me Cox's Orange Pippin crossed with about anything, or a variety grown since the 1700s, and I'll be happy.
Purchased: Two 5# bags of Elstars and one tart mix including more Elstars and some Karmijn de Sonnevilles, yum. Pie city.

I agree, all the Cox's Orange Pippin crosses were tasty.

Me and heather were bummed they didn't have any more tart mixes because we both really liked the Karmijn de Sonnevilles.