Old Common, Day to Day Technology. Waht do you hang onto?

[MossRoad]

Nah. My roots are here. All my ancestors were in California before the transcontinental railroad. (Think Oregon Trail etc.). I'm not going anywhere.

This ranch is a continuation of family roots. See the Redwood tree in the background? I'm older than that Redwood. Grandma and I planted it when I was little.

I hear you. There's several trees I know of that my mom and dad planted. And, there's a bunch of buildings my dad designed in the area. Roots are roots.

 

[Jstpssng]

Fuji apples are good.
My dad kept a small orchard of about 10-15 apple trees, a few pears, lots of plums, few peach, various cherry.
We always used 2 legged ladder.
We made our own cider, I have the hand crank cider mill.

Yes, and you occasionally like to post pics of that, just to make us envious.

I am. :thumbsup:

 

[Alan W.]

Nah. My roots are here. All my ancestors were in California before the transcontinental railroad. (Think Oregon Trail etc.). I'm not going anywhere.

This ranch is a continuation of family roots. See the Redwood tree in the background? I'm older than that Redwood. Grandma and I planted it when I was little.

Understand this mindset. Been here all my life.
My son will be the sixth generation on the farm my great aunt left me.

 

[goeduck]

Nah. My roots are here. All my ancestors were in California before the transcontinental railroad. (Think Oregon Trail etc.). I'm not going anywhere.

This ranch is a continuation of family roots. See the Redwood tree in the background? I'm older than that Redwood. Grandma and I planted it when I was little.

What varieties of apple trees do you have? I like the older varieties as well as newer.

 

[California]

What varieties of apple trees do you have? I like the older varieties as well as newer.

Traditionally Gravensteins. A Google search on 'Sonoma County Gravenstein' finds a large industry specializing on them in the past, for example over 100 apple drying kilns and annually 2,000 boxcars of fresh apples shipped. There was an annual Apple Fair that continues today. One recent article says less than a square mile of orchards remain in the county, that's 640 acres.

This present orchard has some large Gravensteins, large Golden Delicious, and then everything planted as replacements after the 70's is semi-dwarf size, reachable with a 12 ft ladder. More Gravenstein and Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Rome, several rows of Granny Smith, a few random Galas, Macintosh, Pink Lady, Honeycrisp etc. Fujis near the house for family and friends. Some other family fruit trees are replants in random spots - pear, persimmon, walnut, fig, pomegranate. And lots of blackberries down by the ravine, both native and Himalayan. We host annual blackberry harvest parties for relatives and friends.

 

[goeduck]

Traditionally Gravensteins. A Google search on 'Sonoma County Gravenstein' finds a large industry specializing on them in the past, for example over 100 apple drying kilns and annually 2,000 boxcars of fresh apples shipped. There was an annual Apple Fair that continues today. One recent article says less than a square mile of orchards remain in the county, that's 640 acres.

This present orchard has some large Gravensteins, large Golden Delicious, and then everything planted as replacements after the 70's is semi-dwarf size, reachable with a 12 ft ladder. More Gravenstein and Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Rome, several rows of Granny Smith, a few random Galas, Macintosh, Pink Lady, Honeycrisp etc. Fujis near the house for family and friends. Some other family fruit trees are replants in random spots - pear, persimmon, walnut, fig, pomegranate. And lots of blackberries down by the ravine, both native and Himalayan. We host annual blackberry harvest parties for relatives and friends.

Nice! My 160 year old orchard has both summer and winter Gravenstein apples. The bea5 when it comes to pies. I have grafted a half dozen of each to keep the old variety going. I have one red gravenstein (purchased) growing as well. On the old varieties, I have Thompsons King, Winter banana, Blue Pearmain. Grimes Golden, Gloria Mundi and Baldwin to name a few. All grafted onto new full size root stock. All but the Gloria Mundi original trees are still growing.

 

[rangerfredbob]

The Himalayan blackberry is a nasty plant... great berries and super easy to grow (IE if you try to kill them, they'll just keep going for good measure...), I try to keep them under control but if I get distracted with other projects they take over... It's tough around here since they seem to be able to grow about a foot a day when they're extra happy...

I do have a Evergreen blackberry area on the side of my driveway that I try to keep trimmed back, those aren't nearly as crazy but since I'm trimming the Himalayan out of them and leaving them alone for the most part they're doing pretty good... I like the Evergreen berries, little more full flavored

 

[California]

Nice! My 160 year old orchard has both summer and winter Gravenstein apples. ... one red gravenstein (purchased) growing as well.

Summer and winter versions? Tell me more! Never heard of them. Ours ripen just before every other variety, late summer.

Red gravs - a local story: They are accepted at the processing plant as Gravenstein for applesauce, juice, vinegar but they're not well thought of for retail apple sales because they don't look like gravs. A local nursery sold them to homeowners in about 2005 as just gravs, then when they started bearing after a few years the customers with backyard trees were outraged, felt cheated. That nursery said what's the difference, everybody thinks apples should be red. Well not these customers, the type who attend the the annual Gravenstein Apple Fair and likely wanted traditional gravs in their subdivision back yards to confirm their (new) identity as locals. ... That nursery is no longer in business.

Do you see any other difference in red gravs aside from appearance? Tonnage per tree, thinning needed, ripening date, apple size, flavor, ???

 

[California]

The Himalayan blackberry is a nasty plant...

Yeah.

Long ago I wanted to re-open a terrace, an abandoned last row of trees, down by the ravine. Photo. Photo2 - a different attempt. I eventually made it through to where the terrace reappeared at the other end, but I had learned there weren't any apple trees in there worth trying to clean up and get back into production. I let it go back to jungle.

This is the lowest terrace worth harvesting now and its still more berries than apples. Subsequent to these old photos I bought a backhoe and use it to rake blackberry canes out of the trees. It's still a jumble of berries and old Gravenstein trees, but worth picking.

When I was a kid those slopes were kept clean by herbicides. I hate to think what chemicals were in the apples.

 

[two_bit_score]

I’ve gotten some Ambrosia apples at Krogers and they are very delicious. Wiki says they came from BC Canada. They are not common around here so when I find them I get all I can. Very juicy and sweet.