Anybody have any of these apples growing this year? I’m anxious to hear people’s experiences eating them
3 Likes
I do,still aways off from picking here in Zone 5b.
1 Like
Sept 29th one fell off tree. Bugs got it. Seeds medium tan so not yet ripe. Flavor is nice but not sweet. They are large fruit similar to Wolf apple. Skin was not tough. First time fruiting and on a small tree. The remaining 3 are still green. I’ll pick one in another week to see if it’s sweeter.
8 Likes
Oct 25 seeds still not black. Still not sweet. One is left on tree. I’ll pick it in two or three weeks.
8 Likes
Nice looking big apple.
1 Like
Anyone have any updates for 2024? Would love to hear about eating experiences and disease resistance. It will be a while 'till I have any at my house
1 Like
I picked my on Oct 24.They can get very big.My biggest one weighed about 19 oz.
No disease issues.Flavour off the tree is fairly tart yet.Texture is crisp,average for juciness.
2 Likes
I have 1 monty’s surprise on order from burnt ridge on semi dwarf MM111 RS. Looking forward to growing it out here and see what becomes of it. From what I read, it appears to be a good apple to eat for health.
We saw a MS tree at Burnt Ridge and tried an apple 10/25/24. Unripe and too firm to get much of a bite!
3 Likes
Anything to report for 2025 by anyone? Im still impatiently waiting…
My two trees (one on G11 and one on Antonovka) are growing well, absolutely clean leaves with no-spray despite many of my other varieties covered in multiple types of leaf diseases. I think it’s easy to grow so far in VA, just waiting on FB and pest resistance. Also waiting to see if I have a long enough growing season.
I’ll update my experiences with Monty’s Surprise.
My original purchase was 2022. That tree has not grown any taller since I originally planted it.
The newest Monty’s Surprise was planted this spring, 2025. It is tiny, tiny, tiny. Looks like a sickly twig that fell out of tree and stuck into the ground. Sort of disappointed at the actual size I received. I know it stated a " small" was all that was left …but it should have said " TINY".
So we will see what happens this growing season.
1 Like
I had fruit last year but squirrels stole it.
It’s been 3 seasons and not one fruit to taste.
This year there are none again.
1 Like
My sole Montys surprise apple fell in yesterday’s windstorm.
I had several others but squirrels took them. Shown next to a tennis ball.
I heard it is a great keeper apple so I won’t touch it before March or April.
12 Likes
well that’s huge.
1 Like
Great looking apple and a nice reference in size to the tennis ball. I have two young Monty’s Surprise apple trees in my orchard. I hope to see some of them growing here. So far the trees are not growing very much at all. Like they are stuck in stasis. That’s why I bought a second one, to see if it grows just as slowly. Now I want to taste the ones I will be hopefully growing here in the future.
2 Likes
Your self control is unmatched 
3 Likes
This is by far my fastest growing apple tree. It is on EMLA 26 but has far outstripped trees that are on BUD 118. I’d estimate it is about 10 feet tall now even though the bark was chewed by rabbits last winter.
It hasn’t been very productive though. I only saw about 4 apples this year and all were stolen by squirrels. This was the one I protected with multiple mesh bags made of stainless steel! I wanted to leave it on as long as humanly possible to get the best possible representative of this apple. I’ve had this tree for multiple years with no apples to taste!
I forgot to add - this is the largest apple I have ever seen in my life. Even larger than the Sekai Ichi giant apples.
Personally I find keeping apples get better and better over time. Even if they aren’t known to be keeping apples, the flavor improves dramatically in storage. I was about to discard my Sweet 16 tree. It has been producing apples that are barely sweet. I put a few in the fridge for about a month or two. We ate it today and it was delicious with an unusual flavor.
2 Likes
Maybe I should buy one of them on the another rootstock. All I see from Burnt Ridge is M111, which I bought, Bud 9 and a Bud 118. Did you buy it from Burnt Ridge on the EMLA 26?
The original one I planted on the M111 has stayed at 32". The one I bought last year was posted as " small". It was all that was available at the time. It is REALLY small, tiny. It is only no higher than maybe 15-18" tall. And did not grow one bit the summer. Sort of disappointed in the trees. They are not rear each other, probably 100+ feet apart from each other. Just in case it was something in the soil causing this. I did test the soil and nothing really out of whack enough to cause lack of growing. Really odd.
1 Like
Yes. I picked it up directly from them. It was large when I got it.
1 Like
I can also confirm that Monty’s is one of the most vigorous trees I’ve grown. I grafted mine on Antonovka and G11 rootstocks and they took off. Giant leaves and no disease issues so far, can’t wait for fruit!
5 Likes