Fuji apples, just off the tree, a heavenly treat in Valais, Switzerland

We bought a piece of property a few years ago that had two apple trees, 75 and 100 years old at the time. The younger gave Canadas, good for pies, for two years, then began to die and this spring we had to cut it down. The older tree is still going strong and giving apples, a rustic Valais variety that no one grows anymore. It’s easy to understand why: it’s a bit too soft, some years the apples have little flavor and the minute you bite into them they turn brown. Not for today’s consumers.

So we planted two trees, a Fuji and a Braeburn.

The first gave us three apples last year and the other none. This year we have a lovely crop of 20-plus Fujis and 6-7 Braeburns, and we’ve added another tree, a Bramley, that is growing happily but is too young to bear fruit.

I love Fuji apples but they are hard to find in Switzerland, and we had to special order the tree (from Schilliger in Gland). I was warned that it might or might not grow well at 1,100 metres. This year we can boast that this Japanese mountain tree loves the Swiss Alps! The apples are perfect: 200 grams each, a gorgeous orangey-red, acidic but sweet. One apple makes a great afternoon snack, very filling at this size, although they don’t fit well in your pocket.

We used no chemicals, pruned gently in late March, but had to resort to weaving Christmas tree tinsel through the branches in mid-September because jays attacked three of the nearly ripe apples and ate the tops of them as they basked in the sun. The tinsel tree worked, by the way.

Thank you, Japan, for a wonderful “invention.”

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