We moved into our house and by the time, last fall, we realized we had 2 apple trees the apples had either fallen off or were eaten by bugs. I need apple tree 101 so we can properly take care of and harvest the apples this fall! I have no idea what kind of apples they are, we are in Wisconsin if that makes a difference for care.
Picture from last fall:
I would invest in a pro to come in and prune it properly. Just once, to bring back a good shape and get rid of dead wood. You will take it from there. Preferably hire someone from an orchard, who knows what they are doing.
What Mrs. G. said.
I’m a little confused, though. The pictures you show weren’t taken this spring, were they? I’m just thinking that there aren’t likely to be any apples that are ripe in Wisconsin this early.
You’ve got a nice, healthy looking, full-sized tree that has gotten terribly overgrown, and a good pruner will scare you with the amount of brush he clears out of it! It’s too tall to spray, prune and harvest properly, for one thing, and the center is badly choked with overgrowth, so light and air can’t get in there, allowing disease.
You can find good threads on pruning and spraying one this site by using the search function in the upper right hand corner. There’s lots of discussion and when you have a question there are lots of people who’ll try to answer it.
Don’t worry about taking off so much of the tree that you don’t get any apples. Even with half of the wood removed you’ll still get more apples from the one tree than you can use before they go bad - and you’ve got two trees, so don’t worry about running out.
That’s a nice looking apple. If you can describe it some more there will be somebody here who knows it.
Pictures were from this past fall, sorry for the confusion!!
I have a early mcintosh… and your looks similar… down to the dots…
My Early McIntosh ripens mid June to early July here in TN. It is early… it is a McIntosh/ yellow transparent cross.
If yours ripens in the fall… I think regular McIntosh ripens in fall.
That does look so similar!! Mine tastes a little bitter, not bad bitter through (if that makes any sense) do yours taste bitter? Or maybe mine were over ripe?
Found this pic online… it shows Mcintosh and NovaMac.
I started two NovaMac trees this year… they ripen in August, or early Sept… rated very disease resistant to the major issues with apples.
If yours is not a Mcintosh… it could be one of the many crosses or variations of McIntosh.
My early Mac is tart and sweet… when you first bight into it, the tartness hits you first, but then it finishes sweet… has wow flavor. I like a mix of tart and sweet myself… not a sweet only type guy.
I would not say bitter at all, but tart for sure.
And mine vary some with ripeness level… I can pick them early (a mix of red and green) and they are more tart, less sweet and very crisp. I can pick them later when the red turns more purplish and most green is gone, and less tart, more sweet, less crisp.
Maybe mine were tart and I’m just thinking it’s bitter? Hmm guess I’ll find out in fall! 
Dang June is super early for apples. I can’t imagine when your pit fruit ripen. Here we have your early harvest things like strawberry and asparagus then we have cherry season which overlaps with nectarine season, then peach season and we finish with apples and pears. Apple and pear season continues until you run out or through winter.
Sorry pictures were from last fall, I updated my post to stop further confusion!
Honestly in our neighborhood we just let our apples run wild for the most part. We trim every 2-3 years. My thoughts are more so on the sprays. We spray heavily in our neighborhood. It can cost us 1,000 a year to spray here but we have a lot of trees and have professionals do it.
