I live in So. Illinois and I am picking mine now.

Myk:

Pick Lodi (and its parent Yellow Transparent) when it sizes up and is still green. Once it begins to turn yellow, quality is on the decline. We have already picked and made applesauce from our YT here; the earliest in memory.

Neither Lodi nor YT are really great pie apples, since they tend to mush up when cooked, but are great for applesauce for that same reason.

As crazy as it sounds, we have found our best pie apple to be the modern Goldrush, which ripens quite late. They keep very well in refrigeration, and you can make wonderful pies all winter long with this variety. The texture holds up well in pies and crisps, and the flavor is about as good as it gets.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Don- when does gold rush ripen for you? I have one planted on m9. Be a couple of years , it did bloom this year as a bare root. (cut them off)

Knowing they're being picked in So. IL helps a lot. Thanks. Maybe I'll pick them to make my pie for July 4th.

Jellyman,
I don't like apple pies with a lot of texture. Almost mush but barely holding together is what I'm after, that why I like McIntosh for pies and the reputation for a sauce apple didn't sway me. I figure they'll work at some point in the game.
Luckily most of the people who've tried my apple pies but normally don't like them have the same issue about the texture of apples that hold together too well.

I have a G11 graft of my niece's suspected Newtown Pippin and just planted a semi-dwarf. That is my all time favorite pie apple, and again everyone's who's tasted my pies (the best reviews were from a Newtown/McIntosh blend). So eventually it may become a fresh eating/sauce only apple because I'll have so many Newtowns and McIntosh, but for now its purpose is early pie.
I know I like YT for fresh eating and my niece can always use more sauce so I'm sure it will always have a place here. Next year I should be able to leave enough for experimentation.

We're getting so much rain this year they've been pretty big for quite a while but are still green. I think the news said 50% of the last 40 days have rained.

Thanks.

Don,
Any recommendation for an early season pie apple? I want one that stays firm when baked, but we don't have a long enough growing season for GoldRush.

I like the Newton Pippin best for pies and strudel, but it's not nearly as early as Yellow Transparent. It stores well, though, so you can have pies for a long time period.

Note: I like apple pie where you can tell those are apples in there, so I like apples that get tender but hold their shape.

Ive got a Yellow Transparent and consider it to be a big waste of space. I use the apples to make dog food. At no point does it have good flavor and the texture is mushy long before the apples are ripe.

I am going to learn how to graft so I can top work the tree and not have to waste all the years I put into growing it.

I'll give the Yellow Transparent this, though: it is a vigorous tree, and bears at a young age and produces a huge crop every year. (great. Hundreds of apples that nobody wants to eat)

Maybe not you or your friends but not nobody.
I wanted Lodi because I know I like YT. And I know plenty around here that do too, including a guy who uses his to make pies.

Transparent and Lodi make great applesauce but they are also excellent for drying for dried apple pies, and I love my 87 yr. old mothers apple dumplins out of them. She just put sev. in the freezer for later. Also, does anyone else cook fried apples? YT make great fried apples.

If Lodi is anything like YT I think they're great for fresh eating.

Ziggro,
MonArk would fit the bill for an early apple that's good for cooking - and eating fresh. And, unlike Yellow Transparent and its offspring Lodi, which have about a 15 minute window of peak flavor before they go mealy, it will keep well under refrigeration for 6 weeks or so.
Ripe here in mid-July. Jill V. of Applesource, there in IL, has raved about it as a good cooking apple, and it's one of my favorites for fresh eating - and dries well, too.

Here is a link that might be useful: MonArk at VVA

Thanks, Lucky. Sounds like MonArk would be worth checking out.

I've never been a fan of Transparents, but I was surprised and pleased when a pie I made with them last year turned out quite well.

I like Liberty for pies and I'm waiting for enough apples off my Rhode Island Greening graft to experience that one. Won't be this year, though. Scant bloom and zero pollination on many of my apples, thanks to the weather.

Gravenstein has the rep of being a great early pie apple, but my wife won't bake when it ripens (still too hot) and I don't bake at all.

Mykl, have you tried N. Spy? Not too firm but not sauce either- very high on aromatics. Great in sauce and pies.

This year I'm looking forward to some really ripe Goldrush. We must be 3 weeks ahead of last year- I'm already eating Sungold tomatoes which is something I've never done before July.

Last year we had only one month of summer and late apples pretty much sucked. I agree that a quality Goldrush is good for most anything you can do with apples.

My father had two Lodi trees and said that nobody really cared for them and that I could play around with them Grafting and pruning. I top grafted one with Cortland since the scions were readily available at the time and it is doing very well.

The other one I tried to tame back some to see what happens and thinned the fruit when they were the size of a dime. This is the first year I have ever done any of this with fruit trees. Here is a pic of my son and an apple from the Lodi.

{{gwi:115717}}

I donÂt really care to eat them fresh maybe I will try a pie just to see. I canÂt believe how big they are and almost all of them are spotless even with out any spray. The other varieties have PC scares on most of the apples. Here is another of the same apple without the Trophy angle.

{{gwi:115718}}

My biggest was 3.75" when I picked. That one looks huge or the kid has really small hands. Mine had better not get that big or they won't work in the peeler.
I've got to get the pie made. I got just enough, 6 apples at 2.9lbs. But I managed to dump off most of the 4th of July pies then got a bunch of other desert in return so I had to postpone the pie for a day.

I was given a bunch of bug ridden tiny YT. I might make sauce out of them or they may not be worth picking through. At least I can do a side by side taste test.

Never tried Northern Spy that I know of.

I measured the apple last night and it was 4.58" in diameter.

They made a perfectly fine pie. It was only slightly softer than I would like. The flavor is right. The 2.9lbs was plenty.

I think the may have been unripe though. The seeds were still white and there was a slight bitter off flavor when tasted fresh. Hopefully next year I'll get enough to do some iodine testing.

You guys inspired me to pick some of my lodi - it was a mistake, the seeds are still white. We are having a very cold Summer, so I doubt they will go bad on the tree. Yellow transparent apples are starting to ripen too, they taste better for fresh eating than lodi, but lodi seems bigger and firmer.

Still better than either lodi or yellow transparent is dorsett golden, they are ripening now and are quite tasty, very sweet, firm with some hints of vanilla.

The white seeds has me wondering. Perhaps I didn't get a good representation of what it's like in a pie unless I get them very early.
I'm not sure if they were that unripe. I'm fairly sure they were starting to lose the green, one even had a little blush on it, and I picked them all the day one with the blush fell. All but one came off easy.
I have had McIntosh dropping with white seeds so perhaps seed color is not perfect.

If nothing else I guess they're a good apple to pick unripe for pies.

I weighed that apple over the weekend and it weighed 1lb 5.3oz. I made a pie and it was good, tart but good. There was a few that were yellow and the flesh was very soft almost mealy and the seeds were still white. The taste was about the same between the yellow and the ones that were just starting to turn but still firm. I would say that is just how these apples are. I am going to try same apple sauce this week.

I planted a WilliamsÂs Pride this spring, itÂs supposed to be an early apple and I am excited to see how those apples turn out when it produces in a few years.

Myk, your lodi description sounds about right for most Summer areas, they go mealy so fast that there probably isn't an alternative but to pick them while they are still firm - which means they will have white seeds. Because it's so cold here this Summer I am hoping they will mellow a little on the tree before I pick them. But they're really only good for cooking anyway.

Jethro, I have a William's pride that is fruiting right now, they look about two weeks away from being ripe, so not quite there yet. Seems it's a bit later than lodi.

I'm trying to figure out if I have a Lodi apple tree if anyone could help. The apples are a medium size, greenish-yellow skin with a blush on one cheek (where the sun hits). The flesh is crisp and sweeter where blushed and slightly tart where yellow/green. It turns brown rather quickly when eating fresh in hand so it would not be good to use in a salad. I've not tried making anything with these yet. I'm in MD and they seem to be just starting to become ripe. Any ideas?

Mine didn't seem to brown very quickly and I didn't do anything special when peeling and cutting them for pie.

Although your idea of quickly could be different than mine. I have Cortland and Newtown Pippin to judge by, both extremes.