First apple pie of the (California) season

What? Apple pie season before July's gone? For amateur backyard growers, it is indeed so.

Most of us have been steered when planting to the Beverly Hills apple, an early variety that doesn't require low temperatures to thrive. Its fruit is lovely-- pale green and smooth at first, passing through a stippled red-on-yellow stage, and finally-- if the birds don't get there first--to an overall russet red. But after you've had a tree for several seasons, you seldom want to let hanging fruit get beyond the yellow-red stage. The flesh quickly loses its snap.

Happily, it's a terrific pie apple. Since new crop apples have yet to appear in markets and the season in Southern California apple regions such as Oak Glen doesn't get underway till after Labor Day, you won't be likely to have other apple varieties around for combining in a pie (the best are made with a couple of different varieties). But Beverly Hills apples work wonderfully with other summer fruits -- plums, blueberries, peaches. And though they won't be around for Halloween dunking, they make a dandy applesauce, too.

--Susan LaTempa

Photos: Susan LaTempa / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Kathy Diewald]

try the anna and dorsett golden apple together in the same hole. you wilol get excellent pollination of the anna by the dorsett golden apple. Both are low chill. We love the apple pies and fresh eating quality of both these apples. The anna originates from Isreal and the Dorsett Golden from the Bahamas. They are the first on the apple scene with a June crop that extends into the late part of July.
Beverly Hills apples are soft inside and taste like McCintosh. They drop off the tree with the first sign of ripeness. Our dogs loved to play with them and made a mess of the yard carrying them all over the place!!!! The tree died after we grafted around thirty different apple tree scions onto the top of the mature tree. Kathy Diewald