We’re putting an orchard in the front of our almost acre yard. We started with pears this year based on some of the posts I read here, but have been warned away from apples by a local nursery. I’m trying to be realistic about whether they’re too difficult for a beginning grower. I don’t mind learning to prune. We’re open to spraying, but I admit I’m concerned about harm to pollinators and would probably want to avoid harsher chemicals. Is that feasible in this area?
Are apples doable for a beginner in northern Virginia? (we’re in zone 7a, near Washington DC)
@muchtolearn I think you’re near us - how have your experiences been?
I’d be very interested in visiting any orchards/gardens in the area and learning to prune/spray from an experienced grower in exchange for some extra help/labor.
DON’T GIVE UP! You just need varieties that work for your area that don;t require tons of sprays. There are disease resistant varieties you can grow. Contact David at http://centuryfarmorchards.com/ he will help you select what will work best for you he has old southern varieties that you can have success with.
I grow some apples in Arlington, VA and they are only slightly harder than pears (a little more prone to bugs, plus cedar apple rust on some varieites). The biggest issue I have is with squirrels and chipmunks stealing them. They seem a little less interested in the pears. They basically take the peaches first, then move on to apple theft next…
I’m mostly growing smaller crab type apples, “culinary crabs” I’ve come to call them when describing them to neighbors since most people don’t think of crab apples as good to eat. Look up varieties like Chestnut, Centennial, Wickson and Kerr for examples - all pretty large for crabs and delicious right off the tree. The other benefit of the smaller apples is that you can thin out any that are bug damaged and still have a reasonable number left. Plus I’m growing very dwarfed trees so the smaller fruit are better in scale to the plants. For full-sized apples, besides disease resistance, harder apples seem to avoid more bug damage, so varieties like Goldrush and Arkansas Black are good choices if you like their flavors.
I only spray dormant oil and surround (clay), but there are a lot of options for spray schedules you can find on this site.
You can grow apples in your area. It’s not well known that 2 of the largest apple growers in the entire country are located in Virginia. I have visited at dozens of commercial orchards in central and northern Virginia. Many offer PYO fruit or have some type of retail store. Some make and sell hard or sweet cider. Several rent a house on their farm to tourist which is a good way to see how apples are grown, picked and sold. Good list of Va orchards : https://www.virginiaapples.net/apple-orchards
Don’t don’t let the nurseryman convince you that low defect apples are easy to grow in your area, or that “heritage” apples are always superior.
Gala, Fuji, and Goldrush are good choices in modern apples for your area
Winesap is a great choice in older apple varieties - my favorite. Its still grown in commercial orchards in Virginia. Each variety has specific positive and negative points. Some are more resistant to certain problems like Scab, Fireblight or Rot but no variety is immune to all problems. I would not spend a bunch of money on apple trees unless I was also willing to make a commitment to spraying them.
@blueberrythrill I hear this a lot, but it is a vast generalization about Virginia climate and weather. The commercial orchards I know of in Virginia are usually at much higher elevations (think zone 5 and 6) compared to my zone 7a. I can’t assume that what works for their climate and commercial growing operation is going to work in my hotter and more humid yard.
The nursery that suggested I not get apples is Edible Landscaping - which is well reviewed and I’ve gotten good strawberry plants and pear trees from them. I don’t know if they just assumed that I wouldn’t be willing to put in the hard work as a beginner or if they really thought my area wouldn’t yield a good crop. Thus I’m reaching out to your collective wisdom.
@zendog Great to hear you’re having success with apples in this area. I’ll look into the harder varieties you suggested. So far in addition to a large garden we have strawberries, 3 young pear trees, and a couple new blackberry canes. We had two juneberry/shad bushes but the voles got them. Now we know to be careful about mulch - they’ve left the pears alone so far.
Did you read apple reports from @scottfsmith? He is very close to you ant trialed a very large number of varieties. He also formulated a low impact spraying schedule for your climate.
Hey @coffeefueled I am not so surprised on what Edible Landscaping told you, they prefer no-spray fruits. You can grow apples fine, but you will need to use 5-6 sprays per year. Also you need to pick only proven apples for your climate. Here are some that personally have been bulletproof for me in a similar climate to yours:
Hunge
Blenheim Orange
Swayzie
GoldRush
Fuji
Gala or Kidds Orange Red (Gala is more reliable though)
Reine des Reinettes
Rambour d’Hiver
Yates
Cherryville Black (late summer)
Ginger Gold (summer)
I should add SunCrisp as well to this list, also Pristine is another good early one. I tried 200+ apples and these were the most proven-durable for me. Don’t look at nursery labels like “heirloom” or “disease resistant”, look for apples with proven experience reports in your climate by backyard growers.
My low-impact spray schedule is here:
As you can see I don’t use poisons on the apples, Surround spray (very fine edible clay) is the key to get good apples. It takes some experience to get used to how to apply it, I wrote a long list of tips there.
I guess higher elevation is relative. VA is all hills depending on where you’re comparing. Winchester is at least twice my elevation though and gets pretty different weather patterns because it’s a lot closer to the mountains. There’s a decent mountain/Piedmont/coastal divide in VA that makes getting advice as local at possible worthwhile. Though I guess that’s true most anywhere.
Thanks @scottfsmith for the varieties suggestions and spraying tips. The farm we usually go picking at (Hollins Farm) uses surround. I think we’d be comfortable with that. I’m excited to do some reading up on varieties.
I am trying to grow honeycrisp, granny smith, yellow transparent, Winesap, gala and mutsu and red delicious. The only apple that fruited was red delicious but since I did not spray I did lose them to cedar rust. I live in the Stafford VA. The JB’s attack the honeycrisp. I do share your concern about growing apples and I am wondering if I have the right varities to be growing here. I do understand that I will need to spray and will develop a schedule based upon the resources here for next year. But I am considering pulling a few of the apple trees based upon Scott’s list. Dave
Dave, I would say Winesap Gala and Mutsu are good ones from your list. I didn’t fruit Winesap enough years to put it on my own list but it was reliable the years I did fruit it. Mutsu is also usually pretty good, it can be prone to bitter pit some years though. Honeycrisp can be very difficult, I know of few people liking that one in hot weather. Granny Smith is similar from the little I have heard about it.
@coffeefueled you should know that Hollins (and any other commercial orchard I know of in MD or VA) is using poisons on bugs… they are not just using Surround. They are also using synthetic disease control sprays. So I would not go by the results of what you see there, you are not going to do that well. Also Re: diseases, even doing just one spray of myclobutanil after petal fall will make a huge difference in issues like cedar apple rust, frog eye leaf spot, and apple scab. I tried for ten years to use all-organic sulphur etc for those and it actually didn’t work all that bad other than the CAR, which is more or less impossible to deal with organically. Also you need half a dozen or so sulphur sprays to compete with one myclobutanil spray, the sulphur is very weak in comparison. So, I would think about this in advance and realize either you may need to do a lot of sulphur sprays and have to look at ugly CAR-covered leaves, or a few synthetic sprays to get good apples.
That’s a bummer about Hollins. I thought I had remembered them claiming to be organic on their website but that could just be wishful remembering on my part.
Thanks for all the advice. Our expectations are pretty low. We want to keep our trees healthy and get a few apples for eating and storing. My DH I think will be happy as long as they flower. We’d like to stay as bug friendly as possible so I’m guessing we’ll stick to surround, the winter treatments others have mentioned, and some chemical disease treatments.
@scottfsmith do you have a favorite place to order from off the nursery list for our area?
I like Edible Landscaping a lot because they give people realistic advice about what to expect growing fruit in this area. (like you, I am in Northern VA, Fairfax County in my case, 7a)
With that said, you most certainly can grow apples in our area and I have several trees. (some of which I got from Edible Landscaping)
You just have to expect to deal with a variety of pests and issues. I haven’t been at it long enough to give you a real read-out of what to expect but so far so good for me. I expect to get some apples this year from my 3 year old trees.
I did a bit of quick research, there were once commercial apple orchards in Fairfax County.
One example:
AWVS Seeks 'Women to Help Harvest Crops Able-Bodied Needed For Land Army to Do Corn Husking
By Lisbeth Soiling
The Washington Branch of the American Women’s Voluntary Services is recruiting able-bodied women for its land army to do com husking and apple picking on nearby farms. Amos H. Chilcott, who owns a 8.000-tree apple orchard in Fairfax County, says about them: “These women have been a great help picking apples here.”During average years his crop varies from 20,000 to 30,000 bushels of apples. Male migratory workers who in previous years gathered Mr. Chilcott’s apples may have been faster and stronger than these city women, but this is no time to quibble about niceties of perfect harvest work and Mr. Chilcott is much obliged to the AWVS Land Army Committee. headed by Mrs. Mieczyslaw Nowinski, for rounding up the women. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1942-11-10/ed-1/seq-25/ocr/
Looks like the scanning didn’t go so well for this article. I have cleaned it up some but not completely, you get the gist:
Apple growing on a commercial scale also is a new enterprise for >i Sear by Fairfax County. Of course, there have been home orchards of considerable extent for more than a century. Os late years many of these have been running out badly. For the most part the older trees are York , Imperials, Winesaps and Ben Davises -’-varieties which are not so well spited to the fancy trade of city scores. The new orchards are of sjamen. Delicious and Rome Beauty.
Some of the Shenandoah Valley orchardists are buying Fairfax land and jnfdking big plantings. They are able to make savings on the cost of hauling to Washington and Baltimore and according to the Fairfax County Farm Bureau, there js no better apple land in the United States.
At the Christmas dinner one of the most conspicuous
persons present is the brilliant Mrs. Van Xess, a social
leader and great heiress. She is the only daughter of
old Davy Burns, who owned, until he sold it to the Gov
eminent for a big price, a large part of the land on which
the city of Washington now stands, Lafayette Square
(afterward laid out opposite the President’s palace)
being his apple orchard.
@scottfsmith and @zendog which crabs have been working best for you? Some of the posts here say Chestnut hasn’t preformed as well in the heat here?
My apples are going in on either side of the 3 pears probably divided into earlier and later bloom groups. I’m thinking about putting a crab in with each group to help with pollination and it just seems fun to have some lunch box size apples going.
I’m starting to feel like ‘apple math’ works like ‘chicken math’ and we haven’t even bought any yet.
I’m not a big crab fan as they don’t have so many uses. But Whitney and Young America produced very nice crabs for me with little damage. Wickson cracks too much and it is also highly prone to CAR. I had a mislabeled scion of Chestnut which was in fact a really nice small crab, like Wickson but less prone to cracking. I am growing out the real Chestnut now (hopefully).
I live in Southside Richmond, so not to terribly far south of you.
I’ve had some fireblight issues, and some CAR issues, but my biggest problem by far has been Plum Curculio. They preferred my apples over actual plums. I lost 95% of the apples on my 3 year tree to them this year. Immunox does wonders for CAR.
The big apple orchards that I know of are all a 100+ miles west of central VA, either up in the Blue Ridge or close enough to be shielded by them.
Also, most of the famous Cox variants just don’t do well here. So don’t get too attached to any ‘best tasting apples in the world’ bits.
Winchester is at least twice my elevation though and gets pretty different weather patterns because it’s a lot closer to the mountains. There’s a decent mountain/Piedmont/coastal divide in VA that makes getting advice as local at possible worthwhile. Though I guess that’s true most anywhere.