Enterprise apple
The last new-to-us apple variety we got to
taste this year was Enterprise, from one of our high-density
trees. The apples were big and beautiful, and their flesh
was crisp and just the right texture, which is probably why Mark
gave the variety his highest rating of the year --- an
8. I only rated the flavor a 5, though, because I felt it
lacked the complexity (and particularly the tartness) you'd find
in my current favorite (Virginia Beauty). In fact, I'd say
the Enterprise we tasted had a flavor very much like a
top-of-the-line Red Delicious.
On the other hand, a
bit of research suggests that I might like Enterprise better after
a month or two in storage. The developers
of Enterprise report: "Flavor is sprightly at harvest but
mellows to moderately subacid after storage." (I've come to
realize that "sprightly" in apple descriptions is what I call
"insipid".) Enterprise is a good keeper, lasting up to six
months in storage, so maybe when we have more than six fruits to
enjoy, I'll be able to run a second taste test with aged apples.
By the way, did you
notice I wrote "the developers of Enterprise" above? I chose
a mix of heirloom varieties and new developments for our high
density planting, and Enterprise is one of the latter. This
modern apple came out of the Purdue-Rutgers-Illinois cooperative
apple breeding program (thus the "pri" in the name) using the
crosses shown above. I'm definitely impressed by how well
the scientists imparted disease-resistance in the variety since
Enterprise has fared the best of all our new varieties in our
chemical-free orchard, but the taste issue is still up for debate.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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