| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| KYgurlsrbest |
Posted - Sep 26 2007 : 09:35:47 AM
I'm thinking I'd like to plant a couple of apple trees. I live in Zone 6, and wondered what is best for our area--I've searched on line and can't seem to come up with the right "search terms" or something. I'd like to have an older apple type, like maybe cortland, or stayman winesap. Mostly baking and canning I guess.
Anyone have apple trees? Any good suggestions about growth and pruning?
I'm thinking that I'd plant them now (within the autumn), is that correct?
"She was built like a watch, a study in balance ... with a neck and head so refined, like a drawing by DaVinci"...
NY Newsday sportswriter Bill Nack describing filly, Ruffian. |
| 16 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| kydeere40744 |
Posted - Oct 13 2007 : 08:19:15 AM
Jonni,
In the spring - around March/April, the Kentucky Soil & Water Conservation Society (SWCS) Chapter sells fruit trees with many heirloom varieties. They are usually $18 each from what I remember. I can give you a contact person's name if you would like.
It is well worth the drive - but usually Wilson's Nursery in Frankfort has some wonderful landscaping plants, trees, shrubs. I've had some very beautiful flowers and perennials from there.
~Jessica in Kentucky~
Gardening is a way of showing that you believe in tomorrow... |
| brightmeadow |
Posted - Sep 30 2007 : 09:48:18 AM
Ha! To compete with commercial growers in the second-largest apple-producing area of the country using conventional orchard techniques would be hard - to try and sell organic apples at a higher price, reflecting the more labor input, in that area would be more difficult! Heck, most of your potential customers are apple growers!
Here is what the National Center for Appropriate Technology has to say about organic apple production in the East (meaning, I think, east of the Mississippi):
"meanwhile, in the East the few remaining organic growers are struggling for anything resembling market share in the new organic market economy, hoping that Mother Nature will allow them a crop at all, and working at their “real” jobs that allow them to pursue their farm fantasies."
Sounds like me to a T! LOL
You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands - You shall be happy and it shall be well with you. -Psalm 128.2
Visit my blog at http://brightmeadowfarms.blogspot.com ,web site store at http://www.watkinsonline.com/fish or my homepage at http://home.earthlink.net/~brightmeadow |
| Huckelberrywine |
Posted - Sep 30 2007 : 09:21:02 AM
There's nothing like a hands-on lesson. Reading about it and looking at pics is one thing, but so true about the value of a teacher.
I wouldn't give up on the commercial prospects. I've done some reading and visiting with folks, and one outfit is really successful because they offer a very wide variety of apples on a relatively small acreage. I want to say 60 varieties, but that sounds impossible. They told me they grew the apple trees at an angle, and that way maximized crop and space.
With the demand for heirloom varieties, interest in farmer's market produce, and taste over appearance (not that your apples would be ugly, just not the generic waxed red del. row upon glistening supermarket row lacking character and taste), you could do it.
10 years gives you time to plan, plant, and get ready! What fun. Get a good cider press. Market ready-to-bake pies. How much income vs. work/play is enough? It is exciting to think about.
We make a difference. |
| brightmeadow |
Posted - Sep 29 2007 : 06:59:15 AM
Oh, Michelle, I want to learn to graft too! I have lots of books on how to do it, but I've never actually tried it. I feel like I need somebody experienced watching over my shoulder, saying "yes, that's right" or "move that knife a 1/4 inch to the left and change the angle" before I cut.
I daydream about apprenticing at a real apple orchard to learn how to do this so I can go "rejuvenate" the trees in our orchard. (Of course, I have a day job that makes this entirely unrealistic) We have Greening, yellow transparent, Jonathon, Stark's crimson red delicious, yellow delicious, northern spy, paula red and maybe some other varieties that I don't know. Most of our trees are at least 50 years old and they have not been trimmed for at least 20 years. So I have lots of raw material for grafting the tops but I don't know anything about rootstocks and so forth. We plan to retire in 10 years or so, so I'd like to get started "SOON" so I can have young, bearing trees in time for retirement.
Of course, everything I read says that commercial apple orchards are not a real money-making proposition. So I will have to do it for love not money, I suppose!
"I'd like to build the world a home and furnish it with love, Raise Apple trees and honey bees and snow-white turtledoves"
You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands - You shall be happy and it shall be well with you. -Psalm 128.2
Visit my blog at http://brightmeadowfarms.blogspot.com ,web site store at http://www.watkinsonline.com/fish or my homepage at http://home.earthlink.net/~brightmeadow |
| Huckelberrywine |
Posted - Sep 28 2007 : 7:28:31 PM
I wish I knew more about apples. There are so many out around old homesteads in this area, but of course no names and no one to ask. I've decided I need to learn how to graft, so I can have my own "what's it's name". We've just started inventing names for them. Can you take an apple and maybe a leaf and have someone identify it from just that?
We make a difference. |
| KYgurlsrbest |
Posted - Sep 27 2007 : 09:14:29 AM
Brenda--
These are older, heirloom apples. When I lived in New York and Boston, at the farmers market, we would see all these "oddly named" apples, and they were all from the 1800's or prior. While some of them are not sooo pretty, the taste was phenomenal. I really wanted to grow old apples, simply to preserve them.
"She was built like a watch, a study in balance ... with a neck and head so refined, like a drawing by DaVinci"...
NY Newsday sportswriter Bill Nack describing filly, Ruffian. |
| brightmeadow |
Posted - Sep 27 2007 : 08:13:34 AM
Jonathons are great for eating or pies, but tend to be small. In our orchard they are somewhat pest-resistant and dependable for a crop every year (because we sadly neglect our orchard...but that's another story)
Honeycrisp is a newer variety, I see it all over the place in Michigan, but I think best for eating rather than baking
Rome is a good apple for baking
Yellow transparent is my favorite for pies, but they are also tiny. Lodi is an improved, newer variety of Yellow Transparent. It is also good because it is an early apple, ripening early to mid-August.
My husband's favorite for eating fresh is MacIntosh. I hate them for baking because I think they tend to get mushy
I've never heard of Aunt Rachel, Magnum Bonum or Blacktwig. Are they older apples?
You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands - You shall be happy and it shall be well with you. -Psalm 128.2
Visit my blog at http://brightmeadowfarms.blogspot.com ,web site store at http://www.watkinsonline.com/fish or my homepage at http://home.earthlink.net/~brightmeadow |
| KYgurlsrbest |
Posted - Sep 27 2007 : 06:32:23 AM
Hey gals--
I emailed a nursery in North Carolina (which is where my local extension service sent me--if I'd have known this, when we were driving THROUGH NC last week, I would have just stopped :)), but anyway, the gentleman was SO nice, and he got back to me immediately with my questions.
His recommendations were for the following because I did ask him for a) old b) baking/cooking apples:
Aunt Rachel (July/Early August)
Magnum Bonum (early Sept.)
Blacktwig (Late Sept. Early Oct.).
I will also request an eating apple, too. Sounds like Jonathans are a good choice for that.
I did tell him that I only wanted 2-3 trees because of our space.
Such a great site, too! http://centuryfarmorchards.com/
He sells bare root, so I think I will order them, as Marybeth said, in the Spring, that way I can clear some more land this autumn and winter for them.
Thanks soo much for your help!!!!!
"She was built like a watch, a study in balance ... with a neck and head so refined, like a drawing by DaVinci"...
NY Newsday sportswriter Bill Nack describing filly, Ruffian. |
| Amie C. |
Posted - Sep 27 2007 : 06:24:42 AM
I hadn't heard about the crabapple being the best pollinator. I was looking into planting apple trees a couple of years ago, and the books all said that you need two trees and you need them to be types that flower at the same time. Just another thing to keep in mind when you choose your varieties, aside from what type of fruit you like best. I suppose that would apply to the crabapple too? Would you need to pick a crabapple that's going to be flowering at the same time as your apple? Or do crabapples have a longer blossom time that hits both the early and late flowering apple trees? |
| Aunt Jenny |
Posted - Sep 27 2007 : 12:01:33 AM
WE have three trees (we are zone 4) A very old Jonathan, A very old and BIG red delicious and a small Yellow Transparent that I planted a few years ago. (It would be bigger but my ram got out and almost killed it when it was a year old) Our local nursery does sell apple trees and gives good advice on which ones do best here. I want to plant at least one more next year...both of my crab apple trees that were 2 years old didn't make it through our extra long cold winter last year...so I want to get at least one new one too..they do really well here.
Good luck!!
Jenny in Utah
Inside me there is a skinny woman crying to get out...but I can usually shut her up with cookies
http://www.auntjennysworld.blogspot.com/ visit my little online shop at www.auntjenny.etsy.com |
| Carol Sue |
Posted - Sep 26 2007 : 11:17:52 PM
I really like Honey Crisp.
Thanks for the info girls.
Carol Sue
Enjoying life. |
| Alee |
Posted - Sep 26 2007 : 9:49:13 PM
I just bought some called "Honey Crisp" and oh are they yummy!
Alee
The amazing one handed typist! One hand for typing, one hand to hold Nora!
http://home.test-afl.tulix.com/aleeandnora/ |
| OregonGal |
Posted - Sep 26 2007 : 6:46:14 PM
If I could only have one apple tree out of all the apple varieties in the world - I think it would be Jonathan - to me they
are the best in flavor and taste. They aren't the best for pies because they can fall apart, but they can't be beat for giving
flavor and color for applesauce, or cider and eating fresh. And forget the Jonathan apples you get at the store, they don't taste
like one from a tree in your yard. How does a grocery store take something as wonderful as an apple and just ruin the
taste.....I know, I know, they pick them unripe and yadi yadi yada. |
| Marybeth |
Posted - Sep 26 2007 : 10:04:02 AM
Every nursery out here has apple trees on their lot. Ours were on our property when we bought it and i have bought a few from local nurserys. As long as you have two trees they will cross polinate but a crabapple is really the best. and crabapple jelly is good too. Good luck. MB
www.strawberryhillsfarm.blogspot.com
www.day4plus.blogspot.com www.holyhouses-day4plus.blogspot.com
"Life may not be the party we hoped for...but while we are here we might as well dance!" |
| KYgurlsrbest |
Posted - Sep 26 2007 : 09:49:25 AM
Thanks, Marybeth--I've used gravensteins in pies before--they are good. I'm a sucker for those heirloom names, lemme tell you. I just bookmarked a page with over 700 antique apple names and they are all sooo cool!
So, we would need a crabapple, too. I called our local extension office and can you believe, there isn't a nursery or orchard in No. Kentucky that sells apple trees? She said everyone "goes online" now. How did you come by your trees, Marybeth?
J
"She was built like a watch, a study in balance ... with a neck and head so refined, like a drawing by DaVinci"...
NY Newsday sportswriter Bill Nack describing filly, Ruffian. |
| Marybeth |
Posted - Sep 26 2007 : 09:43:15 AM
Fall planting is always good but buying bareroot in the spring is best and cheaper. My favorite older type apple is a Gravenstein. We had them and King apples although they are hard to find. King apples are Fall type apples and Gravensteins are mid to late summer and excellent for apple sauce and/or pies and best for just eating. Kings hold their shape in pies and can be stored for awhile. I hope that helps. Oh with apples you will need a polinater and the best is a crabapple. MB
www.strawberryhillsfarm.blogspot.com
www.day4plus.blogspot.com www.holyhouses-day4plus.blogspot.com
"Life may not be the party we hoped for...but while we are here we might as well dance!" |
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