This may sound like a silly question, but I assure you I want to know We do not raise apples in louisiana, but a few years ago I saw some trees at a nursery and planted two. This year one of the trees has two apples. These are of the Granny Smith variety, and have always been green. How do you know when they are ripe ?

-- George Wilson (cwwhtw@aol.com), June 11, 2001

Answers

In the midwest (Iowa), Granny Smith apples are a late apple ripening about late October or early November. But you have to harvest them before the hard freezes come or they'll turn black on the tree.

You could always just "sample" an apple every day or so. But, if you only have two, that wouldn't work very well would it?

-- Steve Nelson (Alpine1@prodigy.net), June 12, 2001.

Hello. I have two apple trees, a Dorsett Golden and an Anna, and both are green apples that have a slight red blush. My Annas are starting to ripen now, and the best way I know of, something I learned on my own, was to watch the stem of the apple. If you'll look at apples that you know for fact are not ripe, you'll see that the stem is much plumper and brighter green looking. As the apple ripens you'll notice that the stem starts to lose it's plumpness and starts getting more 'woody' looking; still green but not as bright green. I don't know if the stem will ever turn completely brown, because I have picked mine before the stem turns brown. But, there is a definite change in the plumpness and color of the stem. Other than that, maybe the greenness of the apple might change a little? I'm afraid that it will finally come down to a taste-test to know for sure. But look at it like this--if you pick one and it's not ripe and you wait a week or two or three and try the other and it is ripe, next year you'll better know what to look for and have a better idea of exactly when they ripen.

-- HannahMariaHolly (hannahholly@hotmail.com), June 13, 2001.