Trying to time when to pick my Liberty gives me fits. I do the same as you (windfalls, ready-to-drops), and I pick over a period of a couple of weeks. We talked here a week or two ago about picking time versus storage life and the consensus seems to be that the ones picked a bit on the early side will store longer. So if the ones I pick don't seem ready I set them aside -in tightly tied poly bags in the fridge- for later use.

And it may just be that Liberty is fussy about it's ripening conditions for optimum quality. I've had some that are just unbelievably good and some that just weren't worth the trouble. One of the best ever survived a winter in an unheated garage, covered by its decrepit siblings in a plastic bucket . I'm not sure that they're ever at their very best right off the tree, but on the other hand they don't usually store well ... that's not very user friendly! But the tree has its virtues, too.

Good luck,

M

thanks! At least I'm not alone in my confusion! Now that I know it's possible to get wonderful apples off the tree, perhaps I should take better care of it!