Going down the Apple Worm Hole

[nyone]

I prefer Macs for cooking / canning. Mutsu, Johnagold or Sweet Tango for eating. Did you run into the term espalier? The trees are trained to grow more horizontal than vertical. Makes regular care and picking easier. Most of the large NY orchards are moving in that direction.

How to Grow Espalier Apple Trees - FineGardening

Espalier apple trees are a year-round garden feature and easier to maintain and harvest than standard or dwarf fruit trees.

www.finegardening.com

I planted 8 trees of 3 different types 2 yrs ago. We are training them like this. We are in NY and just use weights and trimming to make them grow wide and low. In 15yrs I dont want to be climbing a ladder to pick apples. I do the same for blue berries, just trim them to 7' and lower.

Fyi $27 for apple trees is prety standard price. Also you may not want to start with a 5-7' tree depending on the branch structure. My trees where 2' and smaller when I got them and mostly just a single stick. After 2 growing seasons there about 4' tall but 3' wide.

 

[plowhog]

I have a very old apple orchard with mature trees dying out. I have planted about 30 apple trees over the years to keep the apples coming.

Beware of deer so you need to protect the young trees. I use t-posts and wire fencing around each apple tree. I started the fence area too small, then made it bigger, then made it bigger again. I now make about a 10 foot diameter circle, using 9 t-posts. And be sure to make a "gate" to allow yourself access in and out of the circle.

Weeds inside the protected circle are a huge problem. That is one reason why I made the fenced circle larger-- for better access for me and a little more protection from deer. If you let the weeds grow they compete for nutrients with your apple trees.

As someone already said, gopher cages are a must if you have burrowing creatures.

I install above ground drip irrigation emitters, two or three per tree. Don't do just one because if it fails you lose the tree. I used to use the type that had a small spray at the top. I don't use those anymore-- just an emitter that dribbles water out of a single hole.

Each fall, the bears come in and tear up the mature apple trees. So this will become the fate of my newer trees as well. Can't do anything about it, so in the end they get a lot of apples but we get some too.

 

[ericm979]

Our downfall - not realizing the damage pocket gophers could/would do. We lost 50% of our young trees to those damn beasties. In the end - we had six apple trees that survived.

We had just one tree that survived from about 24 planted. It's sickening when you're watering the trees and a hole opens up in the ground, and then you touch the tree and it falls over. We didn't know about gopher cages and the little bastards ate all the roots.

If you look around there are probably local nurseries that carry locally bred trees. I think that's better than generic trees from a box store. They'll be adapted to the local conditions.

We were planting trees to make hard cider, so we planted cider varieties that are hard to find. They have become increasingly hard to find (we have been buying apples to make cider since our orchard failed).

If you have deer make sure to protect the trees with cages or a fence. Our coastal blacktails will destroy small apple trees if they aren't kept away.

 

[HawkinsHollow]

The more i research, that harder and more disappointing apple husbandry sounds. I was hoping to plant a few trees and harvest a couple bushels of apples every year. But it sounds like a bunch or work and no guarantees of success in that apple life.

 

[plowhog]

I planted about 30 and over a 3-4 year period of time I have lost 2 or 3. The rest are doing quite well.

 

[Oaktree]

I had some semidwarf Cortland trees for 10 yrs, never got an apple off of them. The amount of insecticides needed to make it work wasn't something I could stomach. Is there a better way? Finally planted some full size trees and am getting at least something. More apples than the worms can destroy anyway.

That was my experience too. Put in a couple Macs and a couple Cortlands maybe 15 years ago, and it was a good 10 years before I got anything. Even now, they're not very prolific and the apples are a bit on the small side. OTOH, there are plenty of wild apple trees on my property and they seem to do well. Apples from those are a bit small and sour and work better for applesauce, pie, etc. than for eating.
I don't use any pesticides.

The more i research, that harder and more disappointing apple husbandry sounds. I was hoping to plant a few trees and harvest a couple bushels of apples every year. But it sounds like a bunch or work and no guarantees of success in that apple life.

Agreed. Like chickens, bees or other small scale livestock it's not as easy as it looks.

 

[BnRidge]

On the farm here there used to be an apple orchard. A look at a 1937 ariel map showed trees just starting to get established. There were many of the sweet apple varieties, golden and red delicious, Jonathan, cortland, dutches. The dutches was up next to the house. It made fabulous pies. They seemed to know apples. But half of the orchard were miserable bitter things that nothing liked. The others were full sized, and produced far more than any houshold could use. But those bitter things nothing liked, not even the worms or bugs. I don't know cider making, but maybe those were used to mix ciders? To us they were of no use. By 1997 the last of those trees blew over and were gone. I have the last cutoffs from those in the shed. Counting the rings I get 1932.

 

[ericm979]

The more i research, that harder and more disappointing apple husbandry sounds. I was hoping to plant a few trees and harvest a couple bushels of apples every year. But it sounds like a bunch or work and no guarantees of success in that apple life.

There's no guarantee of success in anything involving plants. But a lot of people get apples of some quantity from their trees, so its not that hard.

We have some trees that were here when we moved in and were too old to have been planted by the previous owners, so they must have been planted in the '60s before the place was abandoned. We've pruned them haphazardly and given then no other care and it doesn't seem to matter. They produce a lot of apples some years and not so much other years. It probably depends on the rainfall and timing of the bloom. The biggest best producing one is likely a golden delicious. Since they don't have a lot of character they end up as base apples for the cider.

 

[Peter 315]

That’s my area. You?

Around the Manchvegas area.. My buddy has a place on Rattlesnake Island and I ride the bike up that way all summer ...

 

[Oaktree]

But half of the orchard were miserable bitter things that nothing liked. The others were full sized, and produced far more than any houshold could use. But those bitter things nothing liked, not even the worms or bugs. I don't know cider making, but maybe those were used to mix ciders? To us they were of no use. By 1997 the last of those trees blew over and were gone. I have the last cutoffs from those in the shed. Counting the rings I get 1932.

Maybe what was originally planted got cut down, or came down in storms and these are what came back from the rootstock?

We have some trees that were here when we moved in and were too old to have been planted by the previous owners, so they must have been planted in the '60s before the place was abandoned. We've pruned them haphazardly and given then no other care and it doesn't seem to matter. They produce a lot of apples some years and not so much other years. It probably depends on the rainfall and timing of the bloom. The biggest best producing one is likely a golden delicious. Since they don't have a lot of character they end up as base apples for the cider.

I've noticed that too, but it doesn't always seem to affect all trees the same. While weather is likely a factor some if could also be just cycles those trees go thru.

Around the Manchvegas area..

Spent close to 40 years there myself (Goffstown), moved to the north country in the early 00s and never looked back. The few times I'm down that way (mostly taking the wife to/from the airport) I hardly recognize the area anymore.