Apple of Peter’s eye

I can easily recall the very first time I tasted an apple. It was Christmas morning, just a few months before my fourth birthday. My brother and I scrambled to open the filled stockings we found hanging over the end of the bed we shared.

Each stocking contained a new penny, some dried figs, a tiny Fry’s Chocolate Cream bar, two Brazil nuts, a ‘Jaffa’ orange and a deep red, shiny apple. Unused to sugar, we found the chocolate too sickly sweet, but I’ll never forget that amazing apple.

I scoffed the lot, even sucking out all those tiny, juicy bits deep within the core. I even chewed the base of the stalk. That was way back in 1931 and I’ve been addicted to apples ever since.
In those poverty-stricken days apples were a rare luxury, especially in winter. As a child I was unable to resist secretly salvaging and enjoying even half-eaten apples or fat cores I came across lying in the street.

When I was seven years old I stole my first apple from the front of our local greengrocer’s shop. Clearly he saw me, but was a kind man. As I passed a week later, he came out and sadly gave me a large apple. Out of shame I never walked past again, always taking an alternative route to school. Oddly enough, in 2007 at the age of 80 I re-visited the area. The greengrocer’s shop had long gone but while passing the empty site I was astonished to experience a re-emergence of that same sense of guilt.

An apple a day

When I was a child I was clearly unaware that my real craving and need was for the minerals and vitamins contained within apples – not just the taste. Although 85 per cent water, apples also contain an extraordinary range of essential nutrients. Nutritionists have long pointed out that regular exercise, coupled with a balanced diet of vitamin-filled fresh food can not only help reduce obesity and blood-pressure problems, but provide powerful resistance to many modern diseases. For me, raw apples eaten with their skins are a major source of roughage and I’m sure they have helped me stay marvellously healthy all these years.

Apples are by far the most popular of all fresh fruit around the world, where they are available. In fact, there are more than 7000 grown cultivars including dessert, cooking, cider and crab apples.

Growing conditions

In Australia we can grow heritage apple trees from the subtropics to the snow, although most varieties grow and fruit better in cooler regions. This is because like fruit buds on many other deciduous fruit trees, those on apple trees usually fail to produce fruit unless chilled during winter dormancy. Most apple varieties need at least 1000 hours during which temperatures drop below 7°C. This is easily achieved in most parts of southern Australia.

However, there are several low-chill varieties (300–400 hours) specially bred for the subtropics. They include ‘Anna’, ‘Tropic Sweet’ and ‘Rome Beauty’, which dates from 1848. The outstanding ‘Dorsett Golden’ actually produces excellent yields after only 100 hours below 7°C. ‘Dorsett Golden’ is named for a Bahamas resident, Irene Dorsett. It was discovered in 1953 and introduced in 1964.

The range of varieties on offer, especially during winter is enormous. In fact, it is possible to select several varieties so you have non-stop supplies of eating or cooking apples for harvesting from late December through to late July. And most late-season apples, including cider and crab apples, can be cool-stored without need of refrigeration until October or even later and still remain in good condition.