First apple pie of the (California) season

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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