How Can you Tell if Apples are Ripe?

Apples ripen in the fall later than other common backyard fruit varieties. Apricots, cherries, and peaches will typically be harvested before most apple varieties. Not all apples ripen at the same time though. Some apple trees, like an old fashioned Yellow Transparent, will ripen early and will need to be harvested as soon as fruit reaches peak maturity because they will not last long on the tree. Other apples like Braeburn and Fuji will stay on the tree until a few frosts trigger the fruit to turn sweet.

If you don't know what apple varieties you like, try doing a taste test.

If you have several fruit varieties or unknown varieties, it can be difficult to know when is the best time to harvest. Deciding when to harvest can be determined by simply tasting one apple to see if it tastes good. The only problem with this method is that some apples are sweet, and others are sour. No matter how long you wait for a Granny Smith apple to sweeten up, for example, it will never happen.

Another way to tell if your apples are ripe, is to give the fruit a gentle tug. Ripe fruit should come off the tree without breaking off the stem or the spurs that the fruit is growing on.

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The only for sure way to know if your apples are ready to harvest is by cutting into the apple and inspecting the seeds. Apples are the fruit tree's ovaries, and inside the ovary is a seed. When an apple seed is mature it will change from white to brown and then darken to almost black. If your apple seeds are brown or black, you will know that the the seeds are mature, which means your fruit is ripe.

When I was a kid I started eating apples as soon as they were big enough to bite into. We even stole Mom's salt shaker and ate green apples with salt. The point being, if you like your apples tart, it won't hurt to pick a few before they reach their maximum ripeness.

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