What did you do in your orchard today?

[CrealCritter]

From a FB group

Although you think of apple pie as being all American, there are NO apple varieties native the North America. All apples originally came from the Caucasus Mountains, (between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea), all the way over to the Tien Shan Mountains of China. Apples are a member of the rose family (rosaceae - Malus domestica). So next time you can’t afford to give her a dozen roses, just give her a dozen apples and tell her their close cousins… (Then run like heck)… There are over 20,000 known and named varieties of apples worldwide, with some 7,500 varieties of apples grown commercially across the world, and about 100 varieties of “Eating” apples are grown commercially in the United States. Most apple varieties are classified as cider apples (sour apple), used for cooking, making apple juice and flavorings in processed food products.

Apples are a true cold hardy plant. They require between 500 to 1000 chill hours (hours below 45°F or 7°C) to break dormancy properly. Without this cold they cannot produce a crop. Many varieties won’t produce in the deep south and on into Mexico.

While apples trees can be grown from seeds, they won’t grow true to the parent variety. They will be a cross of all 4 grandparent plants /varieties. However, many good varieties have been created that way. The Winesap, Macintosh, Granny Smith, to name a few, were all started as a seed planted in the ground. Commercial apple trees (named varieties) are created by the grafting process. They take a cutting from a tree variety they want to reproduce (scion) and join it (graft) onto a root stock of another apple variety. The top part (scion) grows / produces the apples you eat, while the bottom, the root stock determines how cold hardy the tree will be, and how tall the tree will grow. Because they are a grafted apple tree, they are a clone, an exact copy of the doner tree. That’s why one honey crisp apple tree cannot pollinate another honey crisp apple tree. They are extensions of the same tree. Every granny smith apple tree on the planet came from and has been grafted from the one original tree. Genetically speaking they are all the same trees.

Where did the “Granny Smith apples” come from you ask?

It originated in New South Wales, Australia, in 1868. It is named after Maria Ann Smith, where the cultivar came from a single chance seedling. Every single Granny Smith apple tree on the planet came from a clone (graft) from that one tree. Her granddaughter’s elementary school class planted apple seeds out on Maria Ann Smith’s sheep ranch as a class project. All but one grew up to produce small sour apples (called cider apples) and one became the granny smith apple we know of today. Having a greenhouse, and being a plant person, she propagated that tree and sold it locally, and eventually it went worldwide.

The Rome beauty (red ones), sometimes marketed as the Red beauty, Rome red, roman red beauty, or as Gillett’s apple. It is an heirloom variety that remains the number one cooking apple in North America. It’s combination of sweet / tart taste make a great jelly, or apple sauce. It can be blended with other tarter varieties when baking pies and crisps. The dense flesh holds up well to baking. The Rome apple was named after Rome Township, Ohio where the apple was first planted as a chance seedling in 1817 on the Joel Gillett family property. Their cousin Horatio Nelson Gillett was one of the whom first grafted the tree and took it to a nursery to market it to other growers in the area. The apple quickly became a popularly grown variety in Rome Township, Ohio and the surrounding areas. Many companies now offer this variety. The tree is however susceptible to many apple tree diseases, and can be frustrating to grow successfully.

The Yellow Delicious apple variety was discovered in 1912 by Anderson Mullins, on a farm in Clay County, West Virginia. Initially, the apple was, for many years known as “Mullin’s Yellow”. As the tree was found growing on Mullins’ farm, and its origin was somewhat of mysterious, believed to be a chance seedling rather than a deliberate cultivation. The apple was renamed “Golden Delicious” in 1914 by Stark Bro’s Nurseries, that company bought the rights to propagate and market the apple. The name was chosen to capitalize on the already popular Red delicious apple, suggesting a connection in quality and appeal. Stark Bro’s Nurseries began promoting Golden Delicious aggressively. The yellow delicious / golden delicious (same plant) is one of the most popular and widely grown apple varieties in North America. Up until about ten years ago it was the number one variety grown in England and Europe. Until the honey crisp overtook it. It is known as an “eating fresh” apple. While you can make jellies, juice and wine from it, because of its high moisture content, it doesn’t bake well. Tending to turn to mush while baking.

The yellow / golden delicious variety is used in many breeding programs. The Gala apple is a cross between Golden Delicious and Kidd’s Orange Red. The Jonagold apple is a hybrid of Golden Delicious and Jonathan. And the Fuji apple is a cross between Ralls Janet and Golden Delicious. There are 15 known commercial apples varieties that have been created by crossing the yellow delicious apple.

Interesting read (~5 minutes, easy), I've got a line on monty's surprise.

All About Apples: Some History, a Recipe, and Recommendations

An excerpt from "Eating on the Wild Side," complete with apple crisp recipe.

www.sciencefriday.com

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

This is the second persimmon seed FB cut in half. The first from a couple weeks ago showed a spoon also.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[FarmerJamie]

This is the second persimmon seed FB cut in half. The first from a couple weeks ago showed a spoon also.
View attachment 27241

Jesus is Lord and Christ

You are supposed to wait after the first frost, if I remember correctly

 

[CrealCritter]

Here's that little grafted granny smith the neighbors childern helped me plant at the end of March. It's about 6 foot tall now, good height to start scaffold branches. Grafted apple trees in this row grow well this year. I did have to water them 3 times due to two droughts but shouldn't have to water them much next year since they are established now.

End of March

End of September

Prayers and support to all the families affected by hurricane helene.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

Just an FYI...

It's first time ordering from maple valley orchards. But they are now is open for ordering for spring 2025. Prices hard to beat $13.00 custom graft per tree, $4.00 root stocks and $4.50 per scionwood. You can graft one scion cut in half onto two roots. So if you graft your own, that's like $6.25 per grafted tree, plus tax and shipping. Hard to beat those prices, unless you grow your own rootstocks and harvest your own scionwood.

I recieved no notification they had opened up for ordering. Just checked on a whim and found out. When I ordered, stocks we low and milden apple scionwood was already out of stock.

I won't be able to give a review, until I recieve my order my first order in early spring 2025.

maple valley orchards

Prayers and support for all families affected by hurricanes helene and milton.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

FB alerted me to potential first frost tomorrow and wednesday overnite. So I brought in the fig starts. I'll set them back out in the sun Thursday. Still a good number of days and nights above freezing for them to grow before dormancy.

This is how a buddy of mine in zone 7B overwinters his hardy chicago fig with hay bales, hardware cloth for rodents protection, wood chips and tarp. He is in zone 7B I'm in zone 7A. It's nice to have someone close to bounce ideas off of.

His hardy chicago first year in ground produced 25 ripe figs. Second year 75 figs, third year around 300, fourth year plus, average around 400 ripe figs each year. His hardy chicago fig now grows 11 feet each growing season, and is well established. He prunes his back to about 16 inches at the end of each season to overwinter like this.

All this for freshly ripened figs? Absolutely yes I'm going to try my best. Our little baby hardy chicago fig is about 6 inches tall

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

It rained most of the day. So I picked 8 golden delicious apples before they split. It's the very first apples from our in ground third growing season, semi dwarf tree. It had a hard growing season, draughts, getting cedar apple rust (CAR), then getting ravaged by cicadas. We lost more than 20 apples from the tree due to cicada destruction. But despite the onslaught, it held on to 8 apples. FB is baking 7 of them right now I get this one to eat fresh.

We haven't had any measurable rain since helene. So they ripened during draught, which is said to intensify the flavor. I think that's correct, because boy are they ever delicious. Sweet with a heavy perfume flavor and slightly firm semi dry flesh. They taste nothing at all like like soggy cardboard flavored storebought golden delicious apples.

8 - I eat the small one right bottom

Top

Bottom

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

I'm finding rooting bay laurel cuttings challenging. What's odd is I managed to root one of the hardwood cuttings but not the softwood and the other hardwood cuttings. Hardwood cuttings are supposed to be the hardest to root, IDK... this is my first ever attempt at trying to root bay laurel cuttings.

Today I gave all my cutting not showing any bud break a gentle pull and they pulled right up from the soil. Which means they didn't have any roots growing yet. Upon close inspection I found the bottoms hard turned brown meaning dead wood.

So I pruned back the bottoms to good wood and took my grafting knife and sliced a few strips off of just the bark leaving the cambium layer exposed. Then I covered the whole bottom including the exposed cambium and the fresh cut wood with clonex rooting hormone. Stuck them back in the moist soil and sealed them up gallon sized baggies. I put them back under the florescent lights to keep the temperature and humidity up.

I suppose I'll find out if they root or not in a month or so. But I'm calling this bay laurel rooting attempt 2.0. IDK... we'll see. All I know is I'm not giving up on them as long as there's still enough green (live) wood to work with. Which there still is at this point.

Back in the bags for another month.

Here's the hardwood cutting that rooted during attempt 1.0

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

The thing about learning how to graft, is now I have about 30 fruit tree that need to be planted and mulched in. I'm gonna keep on going until I run out of room to plant any more.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

I totally forgot I planted a persimmon tree on the back side of the pond in 2020. It was a home improvement garden center end of season greatly reduced potted #5 impulse buy. I have done nothing to it, I forgot about it.

Today my neighbor seen them from the back pasture. He came and knocked on the door and asked me if I was going to do anything with those huge persimmons? I said hu? He said behind the pond there’s a persimmon tree with the biggest persimmons i ever seen. Then I remembered…

We went and looked and picked about 8 lbs of partly frozen persimmons off that little tree.

It’s a big persimmon, that’s sweet and reminds me of a mushy fleshed pear, if it was sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon.

It has a funky name FUYU persimmon, IDK… I didn’t name it.

Jesus is Lord and Christ