Devoto Gardens & Orchards

09/03/2026

September is for apples! This week, we have some exciting annual debuts, including:

🍎 Hawaiian (first week, Pictured here!): known for its crispy texture, sweet pineapple-like flavor, and all around great munching apple. Developed in 1940’s in Sebastopol, this apple is a cross between a Gravenstein and Golden Delicious. A real treat!

🍎 King David: a tart, spicy heirloom apple discovered in the late 1800’s in Arkansas. Believed to be derived from either the Jonathan or Arkansas Black varietal, this is a great eating, processing, baking apple and known for its complex citrus-like or wine-like flavor profiles.

🍎 Ashmead’s Kernel: an awesome apple variety all around. For those who love traditional sweet/tart hard russeted apples. Discovered in Gloucester, England in 1700’s, this varietal has found an even better home at our farm in Sebastopol. Loved by cider makers and those with the most seasoned apple palates.

🍎 Mutsu: a crunchy crowd pleaser, this large sweet/tart apple is extremely versatile and tasty. A cross between the tart Japanese varietal, Indo, and a sweet Golden Delicious.

🍎 Jonathan: anyone from the Midwest swears by this apple for baking pies and apple butter.

🍎 Hudson Golden Gem: is it an apple or pear? This apple is russeted with rough golden skin and has the taste of a nutty pear but texture of an apple. The variety is originally from Oregon circa 1930.

🍎 Royal Gala: crisp, sweet, and such a solid apple for munching all around. They’re juicy and have a honey-like flavor, making them great for nut butter pairings or salads. These taste nothing like the ones you find in grocery stores.

🍎 Honeycrisp: sweet, snappy, and delightful, and always a crowd pleaser. They’re best eaten out of hand!

🍎 Roxbury Russet (last week!): these apples have developed incredible sugars at this point in the season, and would make an incredible apple sauce or juice. It’s the oldest named American heirloom apple hailing from Roxbury, Massachusetts circa 1650.

🍎 Belle de Boskoop: a tart, sharp, aromatic apple originally hailing from the Netherlands circa 1850. This russeted apple is great in many applications.

08/26/2026

Apple season here we go! We’re in the swing of it and are seeing some of our most coveted varieties:

🍎 Belle De Boskoop (first week!) - introduced in 1850’s in the Netherlands, this apple is russeted and striped in appearance. It tends to be a large, dense, and tart apple that keeps its shape when baking. It’s great to share after a meal or juice or bake with.

🍎 Hudson Golden Gem (first week!) - dating back to Oregon in 1931, this cultivar was discovered a bush of feral apple trees and reproduced because it is perhaps one of the finest russeted eating apples. This textured golden apple is elongated and has characteristics of a sugared nutty pear.

🍎 Ashmead’s Kernel (first week!) - a farm favorite! It’s a smaller russeted apple that really packs a punch in flavor, which is almost sherbet champagne-like with a kick of acid. Good for everything including juice, cider, baking, and eating, this cultivar originally hails from England around 1700.

🍎 Mutsu (first week!) - this large variety is also a farm favorite. It’s a snappy apple that’s a mix between Golden Delicious and a Japanese variety called ‘Indo,’ and named after the Japanese Mutsu province. It can have the charismatic freckles that a Golden Delicious has, as well as sweetness, paired with beautiful acid and super crispy texture. Great for everything like munching out of hand, juicing, baking, etc.

🍎 Roxbury Russet (pictured above!) is the original American heirloom, dating back to 1650 in Roxbury Massachusetts, now part of Boston. Known for its incredible cold hardiness and tough skin, this apple packs a delicious punch and has incredible flavor.

🍎 Jonathan (first week!) - a favorite juicing and baking apple, the Jonathan apple is thought to be a chance seedling from a Spitzenburg tree, dating back to 1700’s in New York. As one of the best baking / processing apples, it’s sweet, almost creamy in texture, and has a nice underlying kick of acid.

🍎 Honeycrisp - they get better and sweeter every week as the season goes on, while still maintaining their crisp. Get them while you still can!

🍎 Royal Gala - a delicious snacking apple, this cultivar is per

08/01/2026

Find us at all of our usual farmer’s markets starting this weekend! Inquire for varieties.

- Thursday: Marin Farmers Market (AIM Farmers Markets 🌱)
- Friday: St Helena Farmers Market (St. Helena Farmers' Market)
- Saturday: SF Ferry Building (Foodwise)
- Saturday: Napa Farmers Market (Napa Farmers Market)
- Sunday: SF Clement St (AIM Farmers Markets 🌱)
- Sunday: (Starting 8/9) Walnut Creek Farmers Market (WC Sunday Farmers’ Market)
- Sunday: Marin Farmers Market (AIM Farmers Markets 🌱)
- Tuesday: Napa Farmers Market (Napa Farmers Market)

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05/05/2026

Baby apples on the farm! This is our most labor-intensive time of year, when the unripe, little apples need to be thinned by hand. This ensures proper sizing and flavor development as the apples ripen up over the course of many months.

If you’re an organic fresh market farmer, you’re more often than not thinning by hand, which takes tens of thousands of hours over the span of a few months, whereas conventional apple growers can complete this process with one spray in a day. Call us crazy, but we think the flavor is worth the wait.

Overall the crop is looking really good, and we’re looking at an early August start of harvest date.

03/26/2026

Keep eating, buying, talking about, working with Gravenstein apples! It will help keep this Slow Food International arc of taste crop alive for generations to come. We're happy to continue cultivating them for our 50th apple harvest this year!

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