We had some last stuff to do to winterize the yard…namely getting the soggy hawthorne leaves off the drive so they don’t clog the snowblower, removing the obstacles in the snowblower’s path, coiling up all the hoses that are still out, and getting them to a no-freeze zone; and (tomorrow) winterizing the pipes. Pretty simple, but it takes 2, one to watch the outside faucet and the other to throw the levers in the basement shutting down the water, then one to hold the bucket while the other unscrews the little drain tap between the lever and the outside faucet.
I’d gotten one last golden delicious apple off the tree a month past, so I thought, but the leaves fell last night, and lo there was another—when you find them frozen you have to eat them immediately, because thawing just ruins them. I ate half and took the other to Jane.
I gave the tree (espaliered) a pretty severe pruning. I have no instruction in this, but I figure if that shape was good enough for its first year, it’s still ok to do. I hope this doesn’t mean no apples next fall, but I somehow think the tree will cope. The 6 varieties of graft on that tree are not all equal in strength, and some had a lot of suckers and upright growth: the Fuji branch is very small and so is the Gravenstein. So I just leveled the playing field as far as how much sap it can raise next spring: no sense letting those greedy top branches suck all the food for themselves.
Apples, all members of the family Rosacea (Yes, Virginia, apples are “roses”), are apical dominant. The highest buds inhibit growth of lower buds. You did right.
As far as pruning, you may have been premature. The recognized auspicious day for pruning roses and apples here on the other side of the Cascades is President’s Day. The general idea is that one doesn’t want the “damaged” tips sitting exposed to the damp while the plant is dormant. It lets disease get going. Here, in mid- to late-February the plants are already beginning to push buds, the damage will be healed quickly. On your side it probably won’t have warmed up enough ny then. If you watch the buds next spring, in comparison to how severe this winter turns out to be and cold the spring is, then the right time to prune will be a couple weeks before the buds swell.
Ah, if I’d thought of the rose connection, I’d have done differently, but I think it should still be ok: we ice up real well, and snow is coming.
Yep, it’s really obvious if you’ve looked at an apple blossom and a “single” wild rose blossom. 🙂 They’re the same. And an apple as an overdeveloped rose hip? That’s very understandable too. 😉
http://paidcontent.org/2012/11/27/publishers-brace-for-authors-to-reclaim-book-rights-in-2013/
Wasn’t sure if you were aware of this but I believe you are in the window to give notice if you wanted to.
Interesting, Todd, and complicated as all get-out.
I remember watching an episode of “The Victory Garden” back about 20 years ago. Roger was pruning an apple tree, and he said that it looked as though he had really butchered it, but that in fact, it was better for the tree to have fewer branches than to just allow it to grow haphazardly. One of the things he said was that there should be enough room for a sparrow to fly through without having to pull in its wings.
Pruning should be done on all suckers, all branches that rub together, branches that grow inward toward the center of the tree, branches that grow on the underside of the main limbs. It’s better to have fewer apples of higher quality than many apples that are poor.
I remember that show, and I keep it in mind when I do my pruning.
FWIW, I don’t know for sure what I have, we collected scions from neglected old trees already on the property and grafted them onto M7A dwarfing rootstock. Two seem to be Gravensteins, four have been possibly identified as Esopus Spitzenbergs. I concur with old TJ, the Spitzenberg is one of the best eating apples in the country–well worth going out of your way to get, if you can grow your own apples.
And an espaliered tree is essentially a flat tree, in this case against the back fence, with one trunk and 3 grafts on each side. It’s healthy, it’s only chest-high, but it produces full-sized very good apples. I gave it the pruning you describe.
Our grafts are Yellow Delicious (best producer,) Gravenstein, which is there (the literature said) to fertilize the other varieties, because it’s earliest, Fuji, Red Delicious, another yellow and one red I can’t remember.
Spitz’s look like a Red Delicious, “peg-shaped”, but there the resemblance pretty much ends. Red Delicious have been changed almost beyond recognition (for eating) by the desires of processors and shippers. I consider them pretty much inedible. Spitz’s are a “winter” apple (I was eating mine after all the Grav’s were long gone), flavorful, very crisp, and very juicy!
All of our apples are imports, and pretty sad ones at that; apple trees really need a cold snap to produce good fruit, which you won’t get here unless you plant 6000′ up! My favorites are the Macintoshes, which only appear here infrequently. They are a very ‘back-yard’ looking apple, but the first thing that gets you is the intense apple smell, and the taste…!
Agreed that Red Delicious, well, they got the ‘Red’ part right.
Red Delicious apples are overbred. Commercialized. Like tomatoes in the produce department. They look good and taste like nothing at all. My sister-in-law has a tree that produces what she calls “green transparent” apples, which I haven’t heard of anywhere else. They are a delicate-looking green apple with a crisp not-too-sour not-too-sweet taste, good for eating and excellent for cooking. My son would climb mountains and swim oceans to get those apples!
Are Royal Gala apples (a New Zealand apple) grown in America now? They are the red sport of the Gala variety. That is if the Gala variety is grown there? We were taught when pruning apple trees that any branches growing straight up should be pruned, probably the same logic as the ones growing straight down.
Ah! Gala is one of our other grafts! I haven’t learned when to pick them..and that limb isn’t strong, but hopefully the pruning—I got all the uprights and downers, including two that had become major suckers, off that tree, so perhaps we are off to a good start!
The Gala were the first variety that ripened in the parents in law’s orchard . If you google enza you will find info about NZ origin apples. Any mistakes in posts are due to learning to drive my early Xmas pressie – Tablet. I think enza.co.nz from memory but its on the other computer
CJ if i remember the downers weren’t orchardists, they had crops didn’t they? When you said you cut the downers it came to mind. Chuckling. Emoticons not available on tablet browser
Welcome in, nzreaderlyn! — You might want to check the shejidan.com forum as well. Cherryh, Fancher, and Abbey fans there from all over, including several friendly Aussies and NZ’ers.
Thanks very much BlueCatShip – I know I don’t need to put your whole name, but I am a fast typist. I’m Lyn, but the username differentiates me from any other Lyn’s on boards. I used to go to shejidan.com but that was a couple of dead computers ago and I ended up following other sites on the net on the next computer. Anyways, thanks for the welcome.
When Shejidan-the-forum’s founder was killed in a traffic accident, there was some confusion about ownership and control of web domains (which is still throwing me for a loop to this date!). Finally got it straightened out in myown head, so here it is for you, Lyn:
I was thinking we (the fans) held all the .NET, and the estate of the late Ms. Sun controlled .COM but it’s more complicated.
http://www.Shejidan.COM acts as a gateway to the active (.NET) forum and various other things.
http://www.Shejidan.NET is the memorial site which has uncorrected linkages.
forum.shejidan.COM redirects you to yuku.com, the forum host we abandoned years ago.
forum.shejidan.NET is the active forum, typing it that way gets you there in one jump.
forumdotshejidandotnet is easier to remember. It’s why we encourage everybody to remember the closedhyphencircledotnet in words and rhythm, not symbols.
Thank you so much Xheralt and CJ. No wonder I lost sight of the forum. I will go there and bookmark it now and hopefully won’t lose the link this time.