Growing up in Goshen Valley in Northeast Tennessee, my Grammie Yankee had a cluster of June apple trees on her property. Each year we made apple butter using those little June apples. My mother, aunts and Grammie would sit under the trees and peel while the kids were offered the “opportunity” to do the stirring. I will always remember that big copper kettle that hung over an open fire and the cousins standing around taking turns using the paddle oars. Grammie always put a silver dollar in the bottom of the kettle as her mother had done – for good luck to keep it from sticking. It must have worked, because we enjoyed that apple butter year round. We especially enjoyed Grammie’s apple butter stack cakes, with that sweet apple butter oozing through those many layers. As the apple butter was being put into jars, we indulged in little fried apple pies. My mother’s favorite. My mother, aunts and Grammie have since passed on, but nothing can replace those precious memories of cooking up those little June apples!
—Glenda Simpson
I had never heard of June apples until I started writing here on the Blind Pig. I can’t remember which commenter shared the information, but over the years June apples have been mentioned by many folks.
Several years ago when I was teaching a cooking class at JCCFS I realized their orchard had several June apple trees. My assistant for the class, Carolyn Anderson, told me about them. Lucky for us the class was held during the first of July and there were still June apples on the trees for us to use for the class. The variety they have is called Early Harvest.
Here’s a few comments shared by Blind Pig readers over the years about June Apples.
Ed Ammons: My grammaw had a big June Apple tree in her pasture. She forbade us to eat them until after the 4th of July. She couldn’t even see the tree from her house but we respected her orders and the ones that fell off before the 4th were consumed by the cows. Some of the apples did ripen in June but most waited until the middle of July.
Some of the apples had candy in the center. They looked just like the rest but the more you ate the sweeter they got and the harder they got. Near the core the flesh was almost clear and as sweet as sugar. Only a small percentage were “candy apples” and there was no way to predict them. I wonder if anybody else has experienced them.
Ethelene Dyer Jones: Fruit–apples–from early June apples until the last of the fall crop was wrapped by individual apple and stored in a barrel to eat at Christmastime in Choestoe. And then, until they came in again with the June apples we had dried fruit and canned fruit, apple cobbler from sliced canned apples, and fried fruit pies. Bounty, indeed!
Bill Burnett: The favorite apples of my youth were June apples which came off a tree beside Licklog Creek on the edge of my Uncle Pearson Dehart’s place as they ripened first and horse apples from my Grandpa Andy Dehart’s place up on High Lonesome as they turned glassine with sugar when ripe and made the best apple sauce and spiced apple cakes and fried pies I ever tasted.
Kerry in GA: I love June apples. Up until a few years ago I had access to 2 different trees. They make the best apple sauce and my kids loved it when they were babies.
Gary Powell: My favorite apples were the June apples that ripened on the tree beside my Granny’s house. For some reason it grew on about a 45 degree angle before it straightened up, I guess the wind blew it over when it was small. I could get a running start and run up the trunk far enough to reach a limb. If one of the apples fell off the old hens would run as fast as they could to try to beat me to it.
If you have June apple memories I hope you’ll share them!
Last night’s video: Gourmet Meal by the Creek.
Tipper
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hi! I had never, ever heard of June apples until TODAY, but ‘today’ I learned a LOT! I’ve learned of the many ways to enjoy them and how to have *luck in the preparation the treats! I had only known of May apples before today, and had quickly asked if the different months were another “Appalachia-ism”, brought about by geography, but — “no!” — that would be backwards, as I am much further Northeast, and Appalachia’s (May/June apple-)ripening would come EARLIER than ours! So, I learned that a June apple is a “different creature”, altogether . . .a real treat to behold (“candy in the center”?!).
My apologies for bunting-in here, without a story to tell about this very special apple. I felt I just “had to” come in to say THANK YOU, both for the original piece by Glenda Simpson and to each and every person who shared their experience and memories! I feel gifted by the descriptions of the location of the tree/s, the various delicacies made from the fruit, family gathering, and the inside of the little apple, itself!
This was sweet!
Hi Tipper and Acorns. I have a June Apple tree in my yard. It was gifted to me by my 106-yr old friend and crochet buddy Elza Stout before she passed away a few yrs ago. She and her husband brought it to their home in Doe Valley, TN when Old Butler was flooded by the TVA with the closing of the new Watauga Dam. My little tree keeps getting mowed and weeder eaten but it is a fighter. I used to sit with Elza and peel apples under her carport after I picked up apples every morning. She loved some cooked fruit. I used to go out hunting June apples with my Little Granny McCulloch (Mama’s Mother). She knew where every apple tree in Cracker’s Neck, Mill Creek and Neva was. They are lovely.
I absoutely loved June Apples, tart but so juicy and good. Many years ago I was pregnant with my first child and I had a sister in law that lived in the same community but a good ways away from our house. As soon as the June apples were ready I would walk in the hot sun, very pregnant to her house and pick me a big bag of the apples and over the next few days sit on my porch and eat them with salt every single day, when I ran out I would go back to get another bag. Needless to say being very pregnant the salt would make my ankles swell and the Dr. would say No salt but I was young, loved the apples so much I would just keep on eating them. I don’t have a tree anywhere near me now so I just go with the Granny Smith but the June Apples were the best.
Tipper, I couldn’t determine if this was a newly submitted post by Glenda Simpson about June apples … ( I’m old – just say “ Bless her heart” like Barney would say it. lol ) I don’t recall our family having any June apples … but I do recall – and still live nearby and still own the farm on Long’s Bend Road right past Miss Phoebe’s old country store at Keplar riiight before one is in Goshen . I wish I had a nickel for every trip I have made in my 7 plus decades going through beautiful Goshen Valley in NE Tennessee that Glenda mentions. I’m just giving a shout out to Glenda ( hopefully it’s my childhood friend Glenda ) who lived in North Fork section of Goshen . Our moms were wonderful friends . In fact, “ my “ Glenda’s mom was the only person to come to my college graduation with my mother ( my dad was hospitalized at the Mt. Home VA HOSPITAL at the time ). And “ my “ Glenda ‘s grandmother was a Yankee. Maybe it’s just a coincidence… and maybe there’s another Glenda Simpson from Goshen, but regardless I enjoyed the article. Just brought back so many pleasant memories from years gone by with Glenda and Donna and their precious mom. ( I am STILL going through my mother’s belongings, and I just found a heartfelt note Joan ( pronounced Jo Ann ) , Glenda ‘s mom, had written to my mother when my precious little grandfather had passed away decades ago . I couldn’t discard it … I’ve kept it . ) I know this has to be the craziest comment you have ever received. I usually “ go by” Dee from East Tennessee. Love watching you and Matt and listening to Paul. I’ve just reread what I have written at 7 am with zero sleep tonight… so just pretend like it all makes sense ! But I couldn’t pass the opportunity to maybe touch base with Glenda again.
I love that connection so much! I don’t know Glenda well enough to know if it’s the same one but hopefully she’ll chime in and let us know 🙂
Hi Acorns! I haven’t heard of the name “June apples” but the description reminds me of some apples I ate in my childhood.
I have to share about a treasure I found with some people who will appreciate it. I am just tickled pink! We are traveling to southern WI today for a weekend with my family and stopped at one of our favorite antique stores in Hixton, WI. It’s in an old school, built in 1916 and it closed in 1998. Its been an antique store since 2002. It’s HUGE! It truly feels endless. Just being in the building itself is a special treat. I can just imagine it filled with children. There are rooms, hallways, stairs and different levels everywhere you turn. The old windows, flooring and fixtures are a fun sight to behold. Anyway, while there I found a Foxfire book! It says “Foxfire 2” on the front with a subtitle of “Ghost stories, spring wild plant foods, spinning and weaving, midwifing, burial customs, corn shuckin’s, wagon making and more affairs of plain living.” The copyright is 1970 and there is an inscription, “To Dennis from Uncle Gene and Aunt Pat, Christmas 1974.” I am so excited to read this book!!
Praying for Papaw Tony, Norman, Barb and Ed, little B, Kourtni and her daddy and any others who need it. I pray you all have a blessed day wherever you are and with whatever is before you today.
Allie-so glad you found it 🙂
Tipper, it’s too bad you never learned to weed with a hoe. You should spend the time now to learn that skill because kneeling (squatting) to weed will not be something you will be able to do as you age; nonetheless, I was pleased to see you using the hori hori.
Growing up on a farm in California, we lived 8 houses lined up in a row. we had one big back yard. One yard in the middle had a June apple tree. This little tree was on the was to the swimming pool. It was a great snack, I’m ashamed to say year after year most of them went to waste. I always looked forward to those apples. Thank you for this article.
Praying for Papaw Tony.
God bless Matt’s father, deliverance and healing and good health in Jesus name, thank you for praying for me everybody, God bless you very much, I like a red apple, I have to peel them because of my teeth, but I remember that June Apple, I ate them as a child when I had teeth, I buy a store-bought Apple now, peel it and put peanut butter on it, Have great day
You never know but what maybe some of those apple trees might have been planted originally to get some cidering apples, but because apples don’t breed true to type they ended up different from what the property owners wanted. Just so it wouldn’t be a waste, of course, other uses were found for the fruit.
My parent and grandparents knew that most apples are not true to type. They also knew about taking scions from one tree and grafting them onto a hardy rootstock or even into full sized trees, producing different fruit on different limbs. Most of the people in the rural area I grew up had small orchards and knew how to manage them. We live in the mountains of Western North Carolina where apples grow everywhere!
When I was a kid there was a big June apple tree up near the road. Me and Johnny Reb, my horse, would tramp down the weeds, and I would reach up in the high branches from his back and get us some apples to share. I would also shake some down for the wildlife.
There were June Apples everywhere at Needmore but Grammaw’s where simply the best. Unlike the rest hers were fertilized frequently. You see, that was the only tree in that pasture and thus the only shade. In the midday sun the cows naturally gravitated toward the shade and the fallen fruit that lay beneath. They ate of the fruit of the tree and left a gift to help it recoup its losses.
Grammaw’s pasture wasn’t the only one with trees, as most pastures do. But, Grammaw’s was the only pasture with only one huge apple tree. So one tree got all the “fertilizer” and grew the biggest, sweetest pale yellow kid snacks I have ever seed or heered tell of.
Ammons, Would that be considered organic apples?
A few years ago, I was driving on backroads to town when I spotted a June apple tree in someone’s front yard. I had not seen a June apple in years! The ground was covered with apples that had fallen, creating a mess for the person mowing the grass. I stopped and asked the homeowner if she would sell me a few of the apples. She told me to take as many as I could find, so I did. She mentioned that people often ask for the apples, but they never take many, which causes the rotting fruit to attract bees and other pests to her yard. I felt devastated a few months later when I drove by her house and saw that the tree had been cut down.
When I was growing up, we enjoyed June apples sprinkled with salt. Mom made us wait until they were ripe and “meller” so we wouldn’t get a tummy ache. I believe she called them yellow transparent apples.
I’ve never heard of June apples before, but I wish I could taste one. They sound wonderful!
Tipper, I Googled June apples because I wasn’t familiar and Google referenced your Blindpig article from 2016! How cool is that?! We had some trees in our neighborhood that had little apples but I think they were crab apples.
Every July 4th, we would spend the week in Waynesville with my Dads family. They had three house on what was called Galloway St. Their last name was Galloway. One house had a huge June apple tree. I remember we would climb the tree and eat those apples with salt. I always wondered what that variety would be called today.
When my folks bought the house I grew up in, there were some old apple trees behind it. Most of them weren’t bearing good apples anymore, except for the June apple tree. My mom made applesauce for years off those apples and as a kid, I loved sour things so I ate those apples green, as soon as they got big enough.
I’d seen June apples in WV hollers and old farms all my life. We’d eat a few as kids but they were hard, green and sour- not to mention an awful puny size. Years later, when I went to Dr. Patch Adams camp, some of the young people asked me what could be done with those apples. I told them sauced and sliced for pies (especially fried pies) would be dandy. They got me an apple peeling old timey machine and it cored too so away we went working with those June apples sometime in July or August if I recall right. It was fun. I’m sure the apples got eaten. As a kid we were told by the old timers with horse apples not to give more than 2 to a horse cause those little apples could make them sick. We always abided. When mommy made her apple butter, she used copper Pennie’s to keep hers from sticking. She’d make a huge pot over hot coals and it was an all day (maybe two) affair. I got a jar of apple butter from a church my college friend gave me and when I was eating in the middle of the jar, I found a yellow jacket added for no extra charge. I simply thought who wouldn’t want to be near that deliciousness, brushed him aside and kept nibbling… I’m an apple lover and to me it’s the fruit of fruits no matter sauced, buttered, sliced, pied, fried, stewed or fresh with a salt shaker. Apples give you lovely teeth and breath-just look at any horse with a lovely smile! I bet he ate apples! I may take it down to Surry County, NC and get me a few bushels to work up this year… God knows I need to… lol have a good one yall! It’s rained for 2 days pretty much straight. It’s cool and I’m loving it…Remember how weather once was? I thought you may…
I’ve had 3 Tommy toes, so far. 2 red & a yellow. The Cherokee purples have small fruits on them so I’m very hopeful. 3 banana peppers, bigger than the plant that produced them, were very tasty. I couldn’t get any lettuce to grow this spring but am enjoying lots of green onions with other meals. I really, really wanted some wilted lettuce, though. I’d never heard of June apples but they sound wonderful. Finding out you could use apple butter in an apple stack cake made me happy lol I knew I’d never have enough dried apples to make one! Norman, I’m so glad they’re going to extract the teeth in the hospital. Tipper is correct about being monitored closely. Prayers they can get you in as soon as possible and some, if not all, of your current suffering will see some relief ♡
My grandmother’s June apples were usually small and knotty. They were difficult to peel and a lot of work for little gain but she saved all she could and peeled and dried them for fried pies. For some reason my father had an almost ill rationale anger about those apples going back to his childhood. I have heard him rant about “Momma and those blame apples”(G rated version). The only explanation I have figured out for his attitude was they represented poverty to him. Having to save every thing possible for survival during the Depression years, but he always ate the fried pies and stack cakes.
my great aunt who lived next door when i was a little thing had 2 trees of June apples (best i can remember momma called them transparents) .. they were sooo soft and once in a while we’d find “apple candy” in the center of one of them… She was a hateful old woman that never had kids of her own but would let us have any apples that fell on the ground. We couldn’t pick any off her trees but if they’d fell we could have them. Every so often we’d find a good one but most of the time we had to eat around the bad spots and fight the bees cause of course when they’d hit they’d often bust open giving the bees access to the soft juices. Can’t imagine how many yellow jacket stings i got from getting those apples that had fell. She’d sit on the stoop smoking her Pall Malls or in her rocking chair under one of the apple trees and laugh at us barefoot younguns fighting the bees for the apples on the ground and eating around the rotten spots… but don’t ever remember her letting us have any straight off the tree even though i do remember picking a couple that were hanging really low that i could jump and reach from the road one time when she was gone to town.
We had apple trees in our back field where I grew up in WV. They were small, sweet and a light yellowish green in color. They were firm but not hard apples. To this day I don’t know what the variety was but we just called them the sweet apples. I know they were not Granny Smiths or Yellow Apples because they had a distinct taste and were way smaller. We also had one large sour apple trees. Those apples were small, always had a spotty looking skin, hard and a very tart taste. My mom would still cook them up to make cooked apples or apple sauce but she always had to add extra sugar to sweeten them. I never knew their variety name either, we just called them sour apples. We also had a black cherry tree and the cherries were very sweet and absolutely delicious! Great memories of all the wonderful years in my childhood extend from the apples and cherry trees in my childhood back yard we lovingly called the field.
Love the memories of the June apples. I’m pretty sure we nor my uncle had June apples. My uncle had two old Yates apple trees. As I remember, they ripened in late summer and my aunts would pick them to peel and dry. I also remember the Yates were small, hard and sour, not appealing to a child. Those were hardy trees, never pruned or fertilized, producing hundreds of apples every year until progress came along and removed them.
When I was a boy, my grandparents had a large apple orchard on their farm. One tree had very large pale green apples that my grandmother June apples. I especially liked them because they were so big and sweet.
My mother spoke about June apples when I was growing up. She said my Mamaw used to dry them and then use them to make fried apple pies and other desserts. My daughter had one June apple tree at one of the houses she lived in in Lynchburg. One year it was loaded with apples. I took quite a few and froze them. That fall and winter I made many desserts including fried apple pies, apple pies and apple cake. They are the best tasting baking apples.
I don’t know if it was a June apple, but when I was growing up my grandparents had an apple tree they called a horse apple tree. The apples were not very large and a greenish color. Grandmother and Mother would share them and only dry them or use them for jelly and pies. I would give a pretty penny to have one of those fried pies. They made their own dough and would fry them in a cast iron skillet and lard rendered from a hog we had killed.