Crabapples are what is Native here in W michigan. Pollination helper big time and not to mention some are fantastic eating, i cant wait for mine to bare fruit!
Applebacon,
You are a champion crabapple grower. Maybe you are the biggest grower of the smallest apples? I like the silly way that sounds.
John S
PDX OR
It is a bit early, but I wanted to try transplanting a few of the larger seedlings pictured above into 1 gal Rootbuilder II containers from the 18s to see what effect early transplant has. Here is a picture of the two:
I’d like to make a small batch of crab apple jelly from my Dolgo’s this year but am not sure when to pick them. I am in northeast Ohio. Anyone have an idea when they are ripe? Here is a pic
Some of them are almost purple in real life. I just don’t know if they’ll ripen more or start to drop. It’s a young tree and barely has enough for one jar of jelly so I can afford to wait and see this year. We are looking for a tree for our front yard and I might actually put one of these in. Our main criteria is that the tree not get tall enough to put leaves in the gutters (2 story house). Most people around here have flowering pears in the front yard which are nice also.
ztom, Those are some really good looking crab apples! I’ve been up around your area the last couple of months or so. Stayed over in the Niles and Youngstown North area. I didn’t realize we were so close… Had a couple of good hotdogs from the Hot Dog Shoppe in Warren the other night… was really good.
Crabapple related question. I have always considered a crabapple to be smaller than most regular apple and definitely more tart than sweet. A couple of years ago I bought an unknown crabapple tree from a back yard grower. He told me that it was the best he had ever had. I picked one of three on tree today and it looked from the outside to still be green. It was only about 1.5-2" and had a great sweet/tart taste. I will keep it but my question is, does an apple have to be tart in your opinion to be a crab? Thanks in advance. Bill
For me the criteria for a crab was the size not the taste. My Trailman are wonderfully sweet the longer you let them hang. They tend to get watercore, but that makes them all the more delicious.
According to wikipedia there are over 30 species of apple and most of them are crabapples. Malus coronaria is called sweet crabapple but I’ve never tasted one so I don’t know how sweet it is.
Chestnut wins top honors for fresh eating at my place, it even keeps reasonably well compared to other crabs that go from crisp to mealy pretty quickly. Congrats on your first harvest!
I believe size is what makes a crabapple a crabapple. If mature fruit are 2" or less (diameter I believe), they are considered crabapples. Larger than that…apples. Taste has nothing to do with those designations.
The question should be reversed what is an Apple. The definition of a crab apple is any apple 2" or less in diameter. Of the 2 dozen or so species of Mauls that produce a fruit anything resembling a cultivated apple, few regularly produce a fruit 2" or more. The only Large fruited wild malus I read about is the ancestoer Malus Sieversii which when crossed with Malus Sylvestris gave us the domesticated apple. So whats a crab apple. Just about everything.
