James Lawson, at Ball Ground GA used to offer Craven from his nursery, and IIRC, Joyce Neighbors offered scions of it at one time or another.
I now have it, thanks to Auburn/Bill
Nice to get more information about the Craven crabapple. Hope your uncle is doing well. Do you grow fruit trees? This is a great forum and I hope you will stay around. I suspect you and your uncle could provide valuable information. Bill
I’m actually not much of a fruit tree grower, a few Asian persimmons in the past, but have been fascinated about my uncle’s horticultural skills, especially at his age. Unfortunately he’s not well right now, but I was visiting him in the Veteran’s hospital in Augusta yesterday and he gave me a bit of history on the crabapple, as best he could. His eyes lit up for being able to talk about his passion. Back in the late 80’s he was deer hunting in Jackson County GA and was in town getting supplies at a little store. There were baskets of red apples for sale and he bought one to take back to camp for the guys. They bit into them and to his surprise (because of the size) they were crabapples. He went back to the store to inquire and learned that they had come from a few trees of a local county commissioner. My uncle found him and the man agreed to share cuttings of the trees with him. This man had gotten the trees from a farmer in Mobile AL years before. My uncle ordered his root stock and when they arrived, he got his cuttings and started grafting. He now has a few of them growing on his property. He used to buy plants from Lawson’s Nursery in Ball Ground GA and took a few of his trees to Mr. Lawson who also started grafting and selling them. Unfortunately, my uncle never got anything for them. Then the nursery closed and now and he thinks others are grafting and selling them too (maybe an apple farm somewhere in North Georgia??). I’m glad that at least the trees still carry his name, which makes him proud.
I hope you are able to find one for yourself.
Becky
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That is so nice that you share his interest in fruit growing. I’m also a vietnam veteran. I take my four grandaughters (12 and under) with me into my orchard and they seem fasinated with grafting etc. They actually have a tree in my orchard that the call their own. Bill
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Thank you for your service
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So… is the ‘Craven’ that you have, Bill, the real deal, or did it come to you mislabeled?
I see from another thread that it’s red, not yellow.
I know I’ve bought trees that were not ‘as labeled’, once they came into bearing, and got one scion variety from the late Joyce Neighbors (may have been the year I requested Craven) that was definitely not the right thing… an early season red apple that rapidly goes mealy…
Perhaps we’re gonna have to hit up Worzel for scions of the ‘real’ Craven crab.
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Centennial(DolgoXWealthy) and Kerr(DolgoXHaralson) have been cropping here for 20+ years. Both very good… Centennial quite sweet, Kerr more tart, with a musky wine undertone. Kerr makes a very good crabapple ‘brandy’ (really more of a sweetened vodka extraction/infusion, the way I do it.). Been here so long I don’t remember where they came from.
Jim Bastian’s Orange Crab (I got my scions from Jim, 10 years or more ago) was a chance finding along the roadside somewhere in New Hampshire(?). Slightly resembles Centennial, but it’s different, with a denser flesh and even better flavor. It’s the hands-down favorite here.
I have an open-pollenated seedling of Hampshire, presumably with a red-fleshed crab pollen parent, ‘Hampshire Red’, that came from NAFEXer Victoria Caron, years ago. Mine’s in a bad spot, heavily shaded by oaks that have overtopped it, and has only produced a handful of fruits one year… they were really tasty!, but I don’t know how heavily it’ll crop out in the open - but I’ve grafted a few onto M26 rootstocks and hope to get them in the ground this year.
‘Callaway’, an ornamental crab, is pretty good eating, albeit small (1-1.5"), and bears so heavily that the trees often take on a semi-weeping habit due to fruit load.
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It was labeled as Craven but red it is not. Probably not Craven but a good crab. I just went out and checked the label to verify. Your right it would be nice to get scions from Mr Craven.
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Does anyone know if there is a link to Lawson’s Catalog on line ? Years ago I remember finding it on line. I enjoyed reading his descriptions of his various apple varieties.
Having acquired some scionwood of it, I’m looking for more information about the Bastian Orange. When did Jim discover it? Was it an old or young tree then? When is its harvest period? Is it particularly crisp or juicy? What is its disease resistance?
My original email from Jim B. is long gone… probably three or four computers ago, and it would have been on the University system, from which I retired 6 years ago.
Here’s what he told someone on a deer hunter forum about it:
“I found it near a farmhouse here in Plainfield NH. The tree is growing on it s own roots so it is either a seedling or a rootstock of some kind. It ripens in mid September here and all the Apples will fall from the tree by October. It’s probably my favorite apple but it needs to be eaten right away because they don’t keep at all. It is fast growing, large leaved and healthy, I bet it will be the first to give you apples from this year’s grafts.”
All I knew was that it was a roadside find somewhere in New Hampshire. I believe that Jim has since moved MI to be closer to family.
The tree I have, which I could have sworn was grafted with scions that Jim sent, is looking more and more like Trailman, though I’ve never knowingly received Trailman from anyone. Photos I’ve seen on the deer hunter forum, either supplied, second-hand, from Jim, or of fruit from a tree grafted from scions supplied by Jim do not resemble those that my tree makes - or those in the box of fruit which Jim sent to me years ago… they were a small yellow apple with red blush; resembled Centennial, but were more rounded. But… here are photos… the red ones still hanging are Jim’s, the yellow w/ blush are mine. They look nothing alike.
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