Great pics. That small tree with those large apples looks really good! Let us know how it tastes if and when you decide it’s ripe! Nicely done, Mrs Karen!
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I have also found that some apples will come off the tree easily , but still be very hard and somewhat sour. After a few weeks in the fridge, they become great. That was the case with my Red Rome Beauties and Honeygolds last year.
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I will try some ‘fresh off the tree’ and store some . . .
I like my apples tart - or at least with a ‘snap’ . . . so I’m not sure I’d like them sweet. But I’ll try it. Thanks for the advice.
For lopsided peach suggest studying how to do the double tongue side graft. I am using that technique quite successfully so far this spring. Save dormant scions and add new limbs next spring!
Double side graft for stonefruit:
Here is something that might help.
Thanks Dennis! I may just try that. But I have just awful luck grafting peaches with any technique at all!
My benchgrafting and greenhouse callousing had great results about80% take, still watching my outdoor grafting only about 3 weeks ago. Try practicing on some saplings before cutting your trees, to get comfortable to match cambium son both tongues, you will soon see it’s rather easy
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From your mouth (well, fingers) to God’s ears! haha. I honestly do really well with almost all other grafts. I get like 99% on pears, apples, and plums. I get maybe 80% on persimmon and paw paws, and so on. But for some reason I just can’t get peaches to take. I suspect from what others have said here that I do it too early in the year when temps are reliably warm enough for long enough. I’m only talking about outdoor grafts, btw, haven’t tried any bench/greenhouse grafting. But thanks for your tips. I plan to try bud grafting any time now so we’ll see how that goes on peaches!
I’m like you Kevin. Apples, pears, and plums seam so easy compared to peach/nects. I have 2 or 3 viable peach grafts in my entire orchard and they are 3 years old or so. I kinda gave up on them. I might try t-budding this year as I’ve heard peaches t-bud well.
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T budding is easier for me. However, Scott just posted his chip budding instructions and pics here.
It looks easy but my past experience with chip budding was poor.
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Had any success with t-budding pawpaws?
(I read online it is not recommended)
I re-re-grafted (yes, third time) my pawpaws, this time trying t-grafts. (that wood just keeps getting smaller and smaller…
Have you had any luck with pawpaw T-budding?
Scott
Never T-budded pawpaws. I have excellent success with bark graft and cleft graft.
However, I have realized that grafts that were done on very small branches took and grew that year. They did not come back the next year. In the meantime, those that were grafted on bigger branches have come back and thrived.
In faxt, this is true for me with any fruit tree grafting I have done, but I am a slow learner!!
I see you got a lot of responses about how tricky apples can be to pick at the optimum ripeness. All seem to confirm that, yes, it can be tricky. I have no sure fire way either… so take this for what it is worth, but I have found smell to be helpful from time to time with apples. Under ripe apples don’t have much scent to them, ripe ones often smell pretty good.
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This is so strange . . . but also typical of how things go in the orchard! - I picked the big apple, because it came off easily when tilted. Went on with my day. Came back that evening to do the orchard ‘tour’ - and 3 apples from that tree were on the ground! We had some freak gusts of wind a few hours before. The wind must have knocked the apples loose.
Great timing! I put those in the refrigerator to see if I could ‘sweeten’ them up a bit, as @northwoodswis4 recommended. 
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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.
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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.
i don’t have the aunt racial variety, but from google
https://pomiferous.com/applebyname/aunt-rachel-id-395
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.
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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 of any way to ID the species before it flowers/fruits, or do they all look too similar at this stage?
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?
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