Not much information out there about Etter’s Gold; Greenmantle’s brief description is about as good as I’ve found.
I’ve got a young Cornish Gilliflower in the ground myself, and I’m hoping to get a sample from it this year.
Thanks for the heads-up about the Claygate Pearmain; I’ll be sure to give it a good spot.
I’ve pondered planting Harrison myself. So far, I’ve resisted the urge to get involved in cider making, but if I do give in, that one is on my short list of additions along with Hewes Crab and Taliaferro. I don’t know where I’d put them, though. Maybe I should just dig up my driveway.
I had originally planned to plant Redfield and Winekist along the street. Both are red fleshed, have lovely pink blooms and are natural semi-dwarves. Further reading and observing their growth here have shown they are likely to droop onto passersby.
So I looked for alternate sites.
Two neighbors on opposite corners from here have agreed to allow me to plant a tree in their yards. Bless them. I’ll do the pruning and walk the owners through the little care they’ll need to establish, then I have asked for a sample of the crop.
Vertical growth is essential along the street and somehow I’d never felt confident about growing Kandil Sinap in this region, despite its reputation for vertical growth.
Disease pressure is fairly low here, but fire blight can be a problem. It kills service berry and Rome Beauty apple (not that I’d ever mourn about Rome Beauty!)
I have been growing Etters Gold for 5 years. It is small on Bud9 in a container. The tree is a workhorse for its size. I usually use them in pies and apple crisps. It is a keeper for at least a few months. The apples are somewhat lackluster for me unfortunately and I will probably graft it over to something else this year due to lack of space. I hope it does well for you and Jerry as you are both in very different climates.
I was also planning to graft less this year, but things got away from me! I guess “just grafting a few varieties” is like “just collecting a couple baseball cards.” I did vow only to graft things that are very suited to my climate zone, and I’m pretty much sticking to that, only a few zone pushers other than the Euro plums. So most of these are low chill and fireblight resistant. I do get a copper spray so I don’t have to worry quite as much about peach leaf curl, even though it’s rampant in our foggy clime.
These are all going onto my multi graft trees, except for the few that will go on the 3 Apple EMLA-111 rootstocks and the 3 Pear OHxF 333 that I’m getting through the local CRFG. Those will stay in pots until they get adopted out by friends, or a spot gets vacated in my yard. Some of these graft will be extras of cultivars I already have but are so good that I’m grafting more. And if you sent me some scions and they are not on this list, it’s because I’m not a good record-keeper–but everything I’ve got is getting grafted! Here goes:
APRICOT:
Autumnglo
Earliblush
Helena
Lorna
Puget Gold
Tlor Tsiran
APPLES
Cox’s Orange Pippin
Kidd’s Orange Red
Calville Blanc de Hiver
Arkansas Black (zone pushing)
Macoun
White Winter Pearmain
Rubinette (zone pushing!)
Mollie’s Delicious
Cameo
Jonagold (should be zone pushing but does really well here)
Stardust
JAPANESE PLUMS AND HYBRIDS
Howard Miracle
Shiro
Beauty
Inca
Burgundy
Methley
EURO PLUMS (definitely ALL zone-pushing, except Sugar Prune)
Autumn Sweet
Castleton
Count Althann’s Gage
Imperial Epineuse
Seneca
Sugar Prune
Tulare Giant
Valor
Coe’s Golden Drop
Hi Quill,
I would imagine container growing an apple would pose many challenges, not least getting sufficient nutrients to the roots.
I put Myko Paks, bought from Raintree, against roots when I plant trees to help with nutrient uptake. The effectiveness has been gratifying, and I’m sure I’ve mentioned it elsewhere on this site. My wife and I compost 9 months of the year: table scraps, leaves and sod. We try to feed all trees, shrubs and saffron crocus with compost. You might have to buy it, in which case you’ll need to watch for brand effectiveness. People have complained in my hearing
some brands are poorly made.
Apparently Etter’s Gold is pretty precocious it you’ve had it five years and had a few crops. Thanks for the news!
when I first came here about a year ago folks said stuff about an “addiction” and I sort of snickered…all I needed was a few persimmon and paw paw, a few plum, and some 20-ish apples and pears.
So this year, I have 6 new persimmon varieties, another 20-ish apple, some peach, a few new plums…
I am getting quite a collection of rooted stuff and cuttings as well, with 7 currants, a serviceberry, and 3 varieties of elderberry…
so this year (partial list I will forget many items that should be on)
Uralian Butter
Irish Peach
Macoun
Wolf River
Washed Russet
Rosemary Russet
Herefordshire Russet
Hooples Antique Gold
Lobo
Chieftan
Dayton
Kerr
Trailman
Zuccamaglio
Neid…something, the Russian red apple I won’t even try to spell offhand
muscat de venus
Actually there was a bunch of nice short, heavy-bearing, sweet serviceberries at the uw here i saw last summer. I was there a few weeks ago again so i “borrowed” a few suckers. They are leafing out nicely in a mini-greenhouse.
Rooting (attempting to) several currant varieties…blackdown, minaj, consort, champagne, blanka
I don’t know if the final vote is in, but there’s a likely candidate in a Virginia apple belonging to a fellow named Conley Colaw, who sent samples to Tom Burford about 20 years ago. Burford and others have been growing it since, and it’s probably available here and there. I know that David Vernon at Century Farm Orchards includes Taliaferro in his Master List. I haven’t asked him if it’s the Colaw apple, perhaps from Lee Calhoun’s collection, but I suspect that it is.
Late Transparent plum
July Elberta peach
Gold Dust peach
Spring Satin plum
Ruby Sweet plum
Surecrop nec
Flavorich pluot
Housi pear
Shin Li pear
Au Rosa plum
Arctic Glo nec
Zard apricot
Autumn Glo apricot
Wilson Delicious apricot
Juneglo nec
Alenia almond
I was curious so I wrote David and he was quick to respond.
“I obtained my scions form Tom Burford, the VA apple expert who helped reestablish the orchards at Monticello. He said this apple is likely NOT the true Talaiferro, but a good cider apple anyway. He is not certain he found the real apple. Email if I can help.”
In the search for really workable cider apples, we might need eventually to give the near-Taliaferro a less presumptuous or effective name. This brings to mind the Foxwhelp kept in the Geneva collection which has since been determined to be something else - and a better performing apple than Foxwhelp has been on this continent. I’ve seen that one called Fauxwhelp, which I think is a winning name! (Mt. Vernon/WSU research station on Puget sound listing? I don’t recall firmly.)
