Carolina Red June Apple
CAROLINA RED JUNE

Also known as: Blush June, Georgia June, Knight’s Red June, Red Harvest, Jones June, Jones Early Harvest, Summer Red, Everbearing Red June, Red June, Red Juneating, Carolina Red, Improved Red June, Sheepnose Crab. It appears in newspapers frequently by the simple designation ‘June Apple’.

The fruit is small to medium, roundish with oblong to quite oblong inclining to a conical shape. The skin is smooth almost entirely covered with red and on the darker sunny side with minute and obscure dots. The stem varies in length and resides in a deep cavity with a closed calyx. The tender, fine-grained dermis is white and sometimes stained with red when eating. The fruit ripens June to July and only a fair keeper. The tree bearing this fruit is very industrious and has an uncommon routine of sporadically blooming twice in the same season, with the second harvest yielding a smaller crop of apples in the fall. The tree grows very upright and becomes bushy, with slender branches and twigs on which the fruit is borne in clusters.

originating from North Carolina in the United States and publicly introduced in 1848. Antecedent strains may have come from Tennessee. This apple’s greatest  appeal resides its early ripening  in June. The Carolina Red June has a good quality flavor, unlike many other apple species with a short harvest time that may render a less desirable taste. Many farmers planted this seed as a prized crop to replace exhausted winter supplies of other apples. The Carolina red June tree does well on many different soils, is productive, and tends to bloom late, assuring a crop most years. 

It won its greatest following as a pie or baking apple, though it had fair fresh eating quality.  In the 20th century the earlier Anna apple took much of the fresh produce market.  But it has remained on the landscape, because of its ability to be employed for other things: cider, drying, slicing and baking.  Its early harvestability remains its main virtue.

Image:  U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705, Bertha Heiges, 1898. 

Samantha Marini