| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| tahir |
ApplesThe trees that cropped had huge crops, so big on a few that they fell over, so always stake your trees, even on M106. |
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| Stacey |
We didn't have a single apple from 6 trees 
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| bernie-woman |
We have had a great crop from our little trees this year - one of them broke last year with the weight of the fruit due to me not thinning at all  - all of mine have proper stakes now 
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| colour it green |
not a huge crop here .. think a late frost ... | ||
| yummersetter |
Zillions the task of gathering, storing and preserving is a bit daunting though. Very tasty and juicy this year.
Some of my M25 standards are developing a lean to the west, 15 years after planting and they are winning the battle with the stakes I tried to straighten them with. When we've got the digger in to make the bridge to the new land I'm going to get them to scoop up the American Mother tree which is now at 45 degrees and I'll replant it elsewhere, with good stakage - not till I've done the easy-peasy picking though. No ladder needed for that one. |
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| tahir |
What's AM like? | ||
| Faithmead |
Neither did we.....but we now know we should have pruned them over last winter!!!!.......so, still learning lots. |
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| yummersetter |
not quite ripe yet, a week or two more, perfectly nice but not exceptional. It's attractive, good red colour and would be a good apple to sell (if only Mother's Day was in the autumn it would make loads of money, we could just call it Mother!). Flavour now is similar to Lord Lamborne, slightly less aromatic than James Grieve and Fortune, which are my current stars of the orchard. But it is a good year so the tastes may develop a bit more yet. |
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| tahir |
Harvested Red Windsor yesterday, good apple, lots of flavour, good looking, some had gone a bit pappy so I guess we were a week or so too late, especially for storage. I'd recommend this one too. | ||
| tahir |
Let us know if it does, any chance of a pic? |
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| yummersetter |
I could send one ( apple, I mean) when I'm next home
or is that coals to Newcastle? |
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| tahir |
I'd love to try one, never planted it (mainly cos I've never tasted a good American apple, the best US variety I've tried is Honeycrisp), so yes please
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| sean |
Are you going to get a separate fridge for guest apples? | ||
| yummersetter |
OK, OK I'll wash all the bugs off first. Just this once.
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| tahir |
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| tahir |
Muchas |
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| orangepippin |
Honeycrisp is a really good apple, but it needs thinning, otherwise it is all crisp and no honey. In general American varieties have been developed for the American climate, hot summers and warm autumns with cold nights. They don't ripen well in the UK. For example, typical annual sunshine hours in Toronto is 2000, whereas most of the central UK is about 1400 etc. Spartan is a good exception though, a very good apple if eaten straight from the tree. |
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| Slim |
there are other American apples (ok, to be honest this list has a lot of European heirlooms on it too)
http://www.scottfarmvermont.com/heirloomapples.html |
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| tahir |
Got my delivery yesterday, the girls were most excited, the packaging was very pretty. Immediate rush of sweet vinuous aroma when we opened it, the girls liked that too, very good looking red apple, quite small (for some reason I expected it to be a biggun). All good so far, unfortunately it went downhill from there, thick skin, very lightly flavoured, no discernible acidity. I cut an apple into 5 pieces 1 for each of us, I ended up eating all of them.
Thanks for sending them YS, had been curious about them for years unfortunately a thumbs down here. Honeycrisp is a much better apple, even UK grown (our local farm shop grow them) |
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| lowri |
I came across Red Windsor for the first time at the local organic place, lovely apple, is it hard to grow?? Any specific soil? I grow Worcester Pearmain very successfully (but it doesn't keep). | ||
| Rob R |
Re: Apples
It's madness to plants trees where they might fall onto a major road anyway. |
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| orangepippin |
Red Windsor is indeed easy to grow, and you usually get a heavy crop too. http://www.orangepippin.com/apples/red-windsor.aspx |
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| yummersetter |
that's fine - if they had expectations of Flower Fairies Amarettos (very very very sweet) the Mother apples would have been a disappointment even if they'd been fabulous. Sometimes a sentimental name will 'sell' an ordinary fruit - no that's a bit harsh, they're better than ordinary. Coming home, driving in the dark, one of the random bag of orchard apples I ate was fantastic, I'm checking the cores now to see if I can track down which variety it was 
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| tahir |
Harvestedyesterday:
London Pippin Not a looker, dull uninspiring green, squat with a five ribbed crown at the base. Crisp, juicy and tasty though, might have been a week too early. New Rock Pippin Well, another squat apple, dull skin with lots of russetting, some red streaks but predominantly greeny/yellow and quite possibly the hardest apple I've ever eaten. Lots of flavour but not very juicy, again a week or so too early. |
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| katie |
We've just bought some land with 800 organic apple trees - all 10 years old-unfortunately the previous owner has lost the file containing the names of said trees. It doesn't matter much for this year as most of the crop is on the ground but it would be useful if he finds the file before next autumn! 
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| Jamanda |
If it's on the ground it should be ideal for making ziderrrr. |
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| yummersetter |
I'm very envious - important right now to come up with some way of giving each tree a unique number and photograph as many as you can bear to of those fallen apples top, bottom, profile and cut through the middle horizontally (one with some leaves)and reference those pics to the tree number. I assume those 800 aren't going to be 1 of each, if so my suggestion would be very daunting Perfect use for a digital camera though.
And in the spring, note down the blossoming time and take a pic of the flowers - you can learn a lot from what flowers at the same time. The classic tree id book is by John Bultitude. |