G’day! I’m an Aussie apple, one of Granny Smith’s mob, and I’m here to tell you all about my fantastic apple family. It’s huge and we come from all around the world - just like the people of Australia. I have so many cousins it’s hard for me to remember all their names, but the most popular members of my Australian family includes Red Delicious, Pink Lady, Royal Gala, Fuji and Golden Delicious. New kids on the block in my family include Eve, Rockit, Envy, Modi, Kanzi, Yello and Jazz (you can read more about them in Varieties). It’s no wonder we’re one of the most popular fruits in the world!
Now, botanists call me a pome, it comes from the French word pomme which means apple. It’s their scientific name for how I grow; for example, I don’t have a woody layer surrounding my seeds like apricots and peaches.
I grow on a lovely tree with spreading branches - great for climbing. In spring, the trees are covered with pretty white blossoms from which apples grow once the flowers have been pollinated by insects. We continue to grow right through the summer and mature in autumn and early winter when we’re ready to be picked for you to eat. You can read more about this in How Apples Are Grown and Harvested.
Just like you we come in all shapes, sizes and colours of skin, which can range from green, yellow, orange-red to dark red. When you bite into us you’ll find differences between varieties too. Our flesh can range from white, creamy-white or greenish-white and we also have different tastes depending on how much sugar or acid we contain.
In Australia, we’re available all year round - depending on our variety and where we grow. Our peak season is from mid-summer through to early spring.
Australia has many different varieties of apples, some of the most popular are:
Red Delicious Apple
I have crisp, creamy-white flesh with a sweet juicy, delicious flavour.
Granny Smith Apple
I’m a firm, crisp apple with vibrant green skin. I have crunchy, , juicy flesh with a slight tart flavour, which makes me excellent for cooking.
Pink Lady Apple
I am a sweet-tasting apple with crisp, juicy flesh. I’m a cross between a Golden Delicious and Lady Williams, which makes me excellent for eating straight from your hand.
Golden Delicious Apple
I have pale green to yellow coloured skin with sweet, juicy creamy-white, crisp flesh. I’m great for eating straight from your hand or I can be used for cooking.
Gala Apple (Royal Gala)
I’m the first apple of the season and I’m a medium in size with bright red blushed skin. I have crisp, dense white flesh with a sweet flavour.
New apple varieties at your greengrocer include:
Eve Apple
I’m the perfect eating apple with crisp white flesh and a delicate flavour. Unlike some other members of my family, once cut I do not quickly turn brown.
Envy Apple
I’m a crunchy apple with juicy white flesh. Like the Eve and Bravo Apple, my flesh is slow to turn brown once I’m cut.
Rockit Apple
I’m a miniature apple with crisp white flesh, thin red skin and a small core. I’m perfect to add to your school lunchbox.
Modi Apple
I’m a rich red-skinned apple with an intense sweet flavour and ultra-juicy flesh.
Kanzi Apple
I’m a crunchy apple with sweet slightly tangy flesh and yellow blushed red skin.
Yello Apple
I’m a new generation of yellow-skinned apple. I’m not too sweet and have crisp flesh.
Bravo Apple
I’m sweet and juicy and have deep crimson skin and crisp white flesh. Once cut, my flesh is slow to turn brown.
Jazz Apple
I’m a medium apple with tangy sweet tasting flesh and a lot of crunch.
Apples are not only crunchy and sweet, they are good for your health.. We’ll help keep you strong and healthy so that you can do everything you want to do - like play sport, have fun, climb apple trees.
Make sure you enjoy the whole apple – skin and all – to get our nutritional benefits. You see we contain lots of goodies to help grow well, keep your skin clear of zits, and make your hair look great, just a few of the ways we look after you. For example, we contain:
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Apples grow in different varieties and regions in Australia. They are harvested from late January to October each year, depending on the type and location of the apple. You can enjoy them fresh or cooked in many ways. Apples are truly amazing fruits!
Most apple trees are grown from cuttings taken from healthy trees of the fruit variety the farmer wants. These cuttings are then grafted to the roots of other apple trees which are good at growing - for example; they resist temperature extremes, pests and diseases. However, the fruit grown on these trees will be of the same variety as those from which the cuttings were taken. Combining the good characteristics of two trees helps the grower gain both a strongly growing and good fruiting tree to maximise the crop. An apple tree will start to bear fruit at about 3 years of age, depending on the variety.
The colour of the fruit, ease of picking and firmness tells you when an apple is ready to be harvested. Currently, apples for the fresh market are picked by hand as mechanical harvesters can damage the fruit and the trees.
Apples bought out of season will have been'cool stored’, which means stored in a cool environment where the oxygen levels have been slightly adjusted. This slows the natural maturing process so that apples can be kept for several months and still keep their quality.
Select those of us with a firm, smooth, glossy skin which has the colour for our variety.
Store us in the fridge, not at room temperature, to keep us as fresh, deliciously juicy and as crunchy as possible.
Did you know that apples are an ancient fruit? We’re so old that we’re even mentioned in the Bible as the'fruit of knowledge’. We don’t really know when man first bit into the flesh of a juicy apple and decided it was delicious, but we do know they were popular with Stone Age people over 3000 years ago. How do we know this? Well, the charcoal remains of apples have been found in the ruins of Stone Age villages in Europe.
Where apples originated is still a mystery, but most historians think it was near the Caspian Sea in the Middle East. We know that the Egyptians loved apples - maybe Cleopatra munched on one while chatting to Julius Caesar. Apples certainly became very popular in Rome and Greece, where they were used as symbols of love.
The Roman army liked apples so much that they took the fruit with them when they marched off to conquer Britain. The apple cores were thrown away, so apple trees began growing wherever the army went throughout Europe.
The pilgrim fathers took apples with them when they set off from England for America, and Captain Phillip made sure he had plenty of apples and apple seed on board when he set sail for Australia in 1788. The first apples to be grown in Australia were planted by those early colonists.
Here are some wonderful Sydney Markets recipes to cook with your favourite apples:
https://www.freshforkids.com.au/recipe/apple-coconut-slice.html
https://www.freshforkids.com.au/recipe/stewed-apple-and-pears-with-protein-porridge.html
