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

[Larry Caldwell]

This is a list of what I'vw planted in the last several years, taken directly from my layout sheet. Most of them are old style "antique" apples, although I do see a honeycrisp on there. My preferred root stock is 111, but sometimes all that I could get was standard. However I have a saw and pruners, and know how to use them. There are a few cherries, pears, and plums in the mix also. Most have been planted long enough so they should start producing soon. :licking:

Some of them predate when I started mapping the orchard and considering that I"ve forgotten what they are, it will be interesting to see what I planted.

2 Ashmead's Kernel
3 Red Gravenstein
4 Honeycrisp
5
6
7 Nanking Cherry
8 Golden Russet
9 Black Oxford
10 Patten pear
11 Pioneer Cornelia Cherry
12 Montgomery cherry
13 ?
14 Golden Delicious
15 Cox Orange Pippin
16 Garfield plum
17 American plum
18 Ben Davis
19 Grimes Golden
20 Northern Spy
21 Lapins cherry
22 ?
23 ?
24 ?
25 Winesap
26 Baldwin
27 Stacyville Pear

Nice homestead orchard. One of the sad things about my parent's place was the Jonathans rarely made a crop, because there was not enough frost days. In the years when it made a crop, the apples would keep clear into January. Plums are a popular crop here, and I also have a couple apricots. Pie cherries are a lot of finger work, but worth it for the flavor. You are probably too far north for peaches and figs.

Nut trees are popular in homestead orchards here. English walnuts, black walnuts and filberts (hazelnuts) grow wild here, and take little care in an orchard. I even have a black walnut nut cracker that I picked up somewhere. Most people just spread them in the driveway and drive back and forth on them to crack them.

A lot of people don't think of plant genetics as technology. So are animal genetics, for that matter, but trees live longer. How long has it been since you've seen a Guernsey? They were a popular homestead cow once, but I haven't seen one in 60 years.