Zestar was bred at the University of Minnesota — a Honeycrisp sibling, released in 1999, also known as Minnewashta. A very beautiful, round and rosy red apple. It's juicy and crisp with a sprightly zest (hence the name). They want to be eaten within four weeks of picking. They will not wait for you.
A Purdue/Rutgers/Illinois release from 1993. Small fruit, dense canopy. A deep red jewel apple with yellowish flesh that is sweet and rich — the texture is similar to Honeycrisp, crisp and breaking. We planted our first half-row in 2026.
Honeycrisp was bred at the University of Minnesota, released in 1991. It's a large, mid-season apple — striped red over a green-yellow background. Famous for its exploding crispness: the flesh bursts with a spray of juice that refreshes you with each bite.
Another Minnesota release, 1978. A juicy, medium to large apple — blushed and striped rose-red and speckled with pale lenticels. The flesh is crisp and distinctly yellow, almost golden. Very sweet with a flavor profile of spicy cherry candy. A favorite with children. It stores passably for about six weeks; best eaten fresh off the tree.
Bred at Cornell's Geneva station in 1978, released in 1979 — the first apple to carry resistance to all four major scab races. It ripens midseason, with a sweet-tart taste that is also aromatic, crisp, and juicy, making it perfect for fresh eating or cider. The harvest window is narrow — the ripe fruit loses its texture and flavor rapidly if left on the tree. If picked early enough it will store for up to two months, with flavor continuing to develop through the first month.
Released in 1988 from the PRI cooperative breeding program — Purdue, Rutgers, and the University of Illinois working together on disease resistance. Williams Pride was one of the first summer apples to carry resistance to scab and mildew, which is why it could be grown organically before organic apple growing was common. It also has an extended bloom, from early through to late-mid season. Opens our season in late July, six weeks before Honeycrisp, and disappears almost immediately. Short window. Worth watching out for.
Discovered in 1811 by John McIntosh on his homestead in Dundela, Ontario — a chance seedling found in an overgrown clearing. His son Allan later learned to graft it, and by the 1870s it was being sold commercially across Canada and the northeastern United States. The most widely grown apple in Canada for most of the twentieth century, and the namesake of the computer. Rounded, mid-sized fruit with bright white flesh. Its flesh softens quickly after picking, which is why the grocery-store version rarely does it justice. From the tree, it is something else.
Bred by the University of Minnesota and released in 2006, SnowSweet was developed specifically for its non-browning flesh — a trait caused by naturally low levels of polyphenol oxidase. This makes it an excellent apple for slicing into salads. The skin is bright mottled red, the flesh nearly white. It stores exceptionally well into spring — around 60 to 80 days — long after most fall varieties have gone soft.
Developed at the University of Minnesota and released in 2008, Frostbite was bred to survive winters below -40°F — the result of decades of cold-hardiness work using Siberian crabapple genetics. Small, lumpy, and not much to look at. But the Brix reading on a ripe Frostbite is among the highest sugar density of any apple in the upper Midwest, rivaling dessert grapes. Tasters compare the flavor to sugar cane and molasses, but tropical notes of pineapple are also detectable.
Pawpaw is the largest fruit native to North America, growing wild from Florida to southern Ontario. It tastes like nothing else that grows in a Wisconsin field — a tropical custard somewhere between banana, mango, and vanilla, with a richness that comes from the high fat content in its flesh. Indigenous peoples throughout the eastern woodlands ate it fresh and dried it for winter. Currently growing in our greenhouse; we will plant a small grove of improved varieties in 2027 as a trial. They are slow-growing, shade-tolerant, and produce clusters of two to eight fruits per stem. They do not ship — the flesh bruises within days of picking. If you want one, you come to the orchard.
Wild European Elderberry grows along the natural drainage between our apple rows — dark clusters of fruit that appear in late July, heavy on the branch. The berries are tart and earthy raw, with a musky depth that opens up when cooked with honey and spice.