On Vancouver Island, my favourites are Northern Spy and Akane.
Northern Spy is very tart, but has excellent storage capabilities. I hand pick them in mid to late October and they will store outside in the cellar until February/March with little to no deterioration. It is great tree for growing, but takes a while to fruit. But some of the apples can be the size of grapefruits, or even small cantaloupes. Once it is going, it is amazing.
Akane is super tasty, with small but very apples. It is a favourite for eating, but does not last long. I have my growing on swales with comfrey and hyssop underneath. Low care, and beautiful to look at. Some years I have to prop the branches up for fear they will break.
I also take all of the apple cores and seeds and broadcast seed them out around the place. I have so many unknown and unusual apples.
On the Completely Arboritary podcast, the tree expert mentioned that when colonists came from the UK to North America, there were over 7000+ varieties of different apples recorded. Such an amazing fruit.
