Some apple varieties taste better fresh off the trees. Some have improved taste after being in storage. You would have to try yourself and see which one you should eat fresh, which to store for a while before eating.
Honey Crisp great off the tree.
Arkansas Black hard like rock off the tree. 3 months in storage, it tastes nice.
Gold Rush - more acidic kick off the tree (a lot of people like it). In a storage for a month or more, it mellows, acidity recedes and sweetness is more pronounced. I prefer it this way.
What kind of fertilizer do you use for your plants that does not attract dogs?
What about for calcium?
I wanted to use some bone meal (supposed to be good for fruit bushes with the calcium), but my dog started trying to dig and eat it. Are there any alternatives that dogs will ignore? Ground oysters perhaps?
Have you tasted one of the apples already? or put them all in the fridge?
In general the early ripening apples should be eaten fresh of the tree, those rarely get better when stored. (think of discovery, red devil, yellow transparent etc)
The more fall/winter apples usually get les acid/sweeter and sometimes more complex aromatic with some storage.
it seems to be an early apple. Although end of June is maybe a bit to early. It’s probably a little sharp (acid) now. But most early apples are. With storage that might decrease some, but usualy the texture goes “bad” fast.
I was afraid of that! Texture is a big factor in whether I like an apple or not. I think these came off a bit too early. We cut into one and it was not very juicy at all. Dense would be the word I would use to describe it.
Salt Spring Apple Company has some great varieties and I like the way their site works. Nice apple descriptions too.
Just a shame they cannot ship trees to the USA. I would buy some of them.
Over the winter I removed an invasive (Chinese privet) tree beloved by the birds, and I’ve noticed that all around the stump, in addition to its own seedlings, there have been a lot of berry seedlings (mostly blackberry), but it had been awhile since I weeded around there. Was just pulling stuff and spotted what I believe is a strawberry seedling:
Does anyone know what’s up with apples named “Cheese?” I love reading about old historical apple varieties and there’s just a ton of them with the word “cheese” in their names (Cheese, Red Cheese, Fall Flat Cheese, Grandmother Cheese etc etc). Are these apples related or does this mean something in particular (flavor, appearance) in apple naming lingo?
I’m thinking about adding Cox next year. Much of what I read says its difficult to grow and best suited for a cool maritime climate. Have people had success with this apple in the Midwest? Average summer highs in my location are low 80’s although are highly variable.
I have Cox Orange Pippin on a wild tree here on our property (Southern Adirondacks of NY) It is on it’s 5th leaf since grafting I think. It has shown good vigor and has formed a nice tree. It gets dormant sprays of copper and oil and then captan and imidan 2-3 times through the summer. With those sprays it has been a pretty clean tree. Since it’s on a wild root stock it has not yet bloomed.
Are all Euro plums compatible to graft between each other; Damsons, prunes, gages, mirabelles? For example, I have two identical Damson and would like to multi-graft one with sweeter varieties.
im not a 100% sure on Japanese. Or hybrids of asian and eu’s. But i think those on most cases work to.
edit: in the EU we graft quite a few apricots to plum rootstocks. Some variety’s don’t like this some do. But if i where to gamble, id assume most plum apricot hybrids would be decently graft compatible with most plums.
There is a deep dive thread here somewhere where we did all the theories. I think our conclusion is having some American plum in the lineage greatly improves compatibility.
do you know what the name or link of that topic is? i would be really interested in it. If read a few of the compatibility grafting topics on this forum. (those where what made me a member of this forum) but i can’t recall the specific conclusion your talking about. So i guess i missed a topic, or my memory is failing me XD
Its not like we did a scientific study on the matter but the discussion was around this point. Also Prunus salicina appears to be 4 distinct genetic populations making the Asian question even more complicated.
I have two sweet cherry trees of unknown variety. They are roughly 100’ apart and separated by other blossoming trees, as well as elevation difference. They are 8-10 years old, and blossom profusely but hardly set fruit ( generally around 10 cherries per year, though this past year, with the bad spring, there are zero. ) I want to purchase a mature pollinator so that I can possibly have fruit next year. I do not want to wait on a bare root tree, or grafts, to establish for another 2-3 years before they will blossom. However, local garden centers generally do not have varieties that are obviously different ( such as yellowish or black cherries ) and I do not want to purchase the same variety ( they may very well both be the same varieties, though one has bark that is more silvery/gray, and the other more towards light brown ). I cannot remember how the fruit looked. I believe they were red, but not dark red or yellow red. However, they may have never been given adequate time to ripen before others picked them off. Given that these cherries hardly produce, if at all, what are the chances that they are self-pollinating varieties? If not self-pollinating, I can at least consider a few varieties local nurseries tend to carry. Are Bing cherries always dark red or do they darken as they ripen?
multiple factors could lead to your poor production.
How far away would the other nearest cherry tree be? (neighbours)
Since you did get a few cherries, it could be that pollination is not the problem.
And if pollination is the problem you should either lookup the S allele of your current varieties. Or plant a self fertile one (broken S4)
you could also consider grafting a branch of a pollinator in your mature tree’s. that might even give some flowers next spring. But definitely the spring afterwards if you graft now.
