Planted 45 apple trees his weekend, total of 40 different antique varieties. My 91 year old dad cut the protective cages!
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Pictures?
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Wow, thats a lot of work, sounds great. Yes, pictures, please. Also, what varieties and their rootstocks? Thanks.
I would love to see pictures of your orchard. It sounds wonderful! And great going for your Dad!
Too many varieties to list!
Great job!! I’ve starting planting antique/heirloom apple varieties as well. Not as many as you all at one time. LOTS of work. Fantastic your dad could help you. Great memories for years to come. I hope he gets to taste some of the fruit off those threes when they start producing fruit.
That’s a lot of work. I hope the ground was a little moist. Before i plant here I wait for a rain.
Fair enough, hope they do well for you. Awesome to hear that yer dad was able to help out. I know you said you’ve put fencing around them, but will these eventually be food plots for deer? I noticed that you’re a hunter.
My planting antique apples started as a hobby because of my lifelong interest in cider. I worked for a vegetable farmer as a teenager making cider. I have been using the apples to make cider and apple butter. However, since my hobby has gotten out of hand, I will soon have apples coming out of my a…! A young man from St Louis is starting a hard cider business; upon learning of all of my antique cider varieties, he approached me about buying my “excess” apples. With all the apples my trees will produce there will be plenty of drops for the deer.
My dad has been able to enjoy the benefits of his hard work as 20 of my trees planted in 2008-2010 have produced for 3-4 years. He has been enjoying pies, apple butter (he eats it like ice cream), and his favorite apple is grimes golden, which he ate as a child.
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I started using m111 rootstock, but switched 5 years ago to b118 which produces in 3-5 years versus 5-8 for m111. Both grow to similar size and are self supporting.
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How do you like the B118 compared to the M111 for problems? I have some on M111 and I am starting to get a lot of suckering on the third year growing ones. I had some G series that all split below the graft. I probably will not use the G series again. I lost all of ones on G series.
I do like the fact you can get fruit sooner on the B118. I did not realize that. I had read they both produced fruit in 3-5 years. My last years M111 that were 3 years had maybe 1-3 pieces of fruit. Sad fruit too. Not really edible.
Maybe the happy access to those apples is a key to his longevity.
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