I’ve gone down a dangerous rabbithole… Lots of apple stops these days. Tonight’s find is crisp like grocery store red delicious but actually has flavor. Full size fruit on a full size tree in the median along my route to work.
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Buzz says that there are 10’s of thousands of roadside apples in VT… so likely they are in alot of places.
we have 10’s of thousands of seedlings apples along the roadsides and many abandoned orchards as well. Most hold no interest, some are very beautiful but have no taste or qualities you would want, every now and then I find a great wild one- no disease, great eating, beautiful form, pink or red fleshed, super productive or great for cider.
They are all over the place on my rural road… old farms and homesteads and up in hollows off the road side.
In the 70s i remember riding my bicycle up and down neighborhoods and it seemed every yard had an apple tree or some kind of fruit as they were fallen in the road. Most of them are gone and replaced with ornamentals. Alot of them got removed with new data lines and underground networks of utilities that comes with progress in the city.
Really nice example you found there… however on many of my FB groups that apple would have black spots that one person said was ‘black mold’ and would be unsafe to eat!
Fruit hunting is so fun… i still drive up and down neighborhoods and side roads. Every time i have stopped to ask… the person is almost always eager to tell a story or welcome me to some fruit.
I would love to watch a show called American Fruit Pickers where they drive all over the US and explore old orchards and homesteads… I wouldnt mind a worldwide version either.
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its almost like discovering gold. im always on the watch for any wild roadside fruit. my wife just rolls her eyes when i pull over or turn around to go sample some apples. lol.
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Except with immediate tangible satisfaction in your belly 
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I hear you. I just brought mine out to lunch today, but I had an apple, a walnut and a chestnut tree mapped out along our route to stop and check out. She was a trooper, but thinks I’ve lost it. (I probably have).
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yeah, youre a goner. right off the deep end
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Alas poor Everett, we knew him well.
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I like the idea of a show featuring growers’ pride. Mangoes in India, coffee in Ethiopia, pineapples, guavas and others from the Americas, experimental orchards, botanical curiosities, fruit history. It could awaken the public’s latent naturalistic intelligence. So cool. Sign me up
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“A Man of infinite jest.”
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I found the most delicious (and huge) pear on the edge of a country road today. Very little scab or cracking on the fruit. Large, juicy, sweet with flavor reminiscent of both European and Asian pear. Crisp and firm, yet tender and not gritty or astringent. I believe it to be of chance hybrid origin. I will be collecting scion to graft once it goes dormant.
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There was a bit of a surprise waiting for me inside this seedling apple I stopped and tried on my morning commute. Fairly tasty too, although not a unique flavor in any way.
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There’s one I’d graft just from the picure if I had scions. Pretty looking.
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Yes, definitely get some scion wood from that red fleshed seedling and share it around. We could use more red varieties to help in breeding programs to create that perfect red fleshed apple.
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looks like the red sport of Gravenstein that fedco sells scions of. a few of the wild ones around here have that red flesh but the timing isnt right. they are done here in late Aug. cool find!
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Completely agree.
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I’m envious. We get a few roadside apples, some plums, and the occasional peach. They are few and far between, and becoming less common. Certainly never seen a mulberry or persimmon.
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Sounds like you have some planting to do!
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I don’t think I’ve ever seen a roadside fruit in my whole life in southern Louisiana. I’m sure if I looked I could have found a few American persimmons…
Pecan trees for sure, though they aren’t really roadside but planted on peoples property.
Blackberries is about the extent.
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Check i naturalist! Search by species for pawpaws, persimmons, apples, pears, Prunus, Morus, etc, I bet you’ll be surprised.
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Two of my dragonfruit vines grow over the side of my fence, bordering a sidewalk (I’m on the corner). Someone helped themselves to the two ripening DF. I wasn’t happy! The only good thing is that these vines are white fleshed DF grown from seed, so not a huge loss.
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