As I mentioned in a recent post, there are many "wild" apple trees around. When we started making the garden, one of these wild apple trees was growing in what was to be the vegetable garden. Instead of removing it, we decided to keep it as a rootstock and try to graft on it different varieties. Some of the grafts took and grew well, but we only had our first apples from the tree this year.
We first selected a few varieties we liked. I think there were four different ones: a "Harvest/Yellow Transparent" type, two very tasty kinds of red eating apples and a big one that turns yellow later in the season which was growing wild along the road.
It is recommended that the scions, the branches you graft on the rootstock, be taken late in the autumn when the wood is dormant. You then bury them in sand in a cellar and graft them the next spring when the sap is running. In November 2008, I set out to get my scions. I did not have any problem with the first three varieties but, when it came to the big yellow wild apple, I was no longer sure which was the right tree. It had been obvious in September, when all the big yellow apples were on. But in November, when the fruit was gone, all the apple trees growing wild along the road looked pretty much alike. I should have tied something to a branch to identify the tree I was interested in, but it was too late. Anyhow, I took some scions from what I thought was the right tree and buried them for the winter.
In the spring of 2009, I grafted them all and waited. As luck would have it, it turned out that the graft that took were one Yellow Transparent and four of the big yellows I was not sure of. All the other ones died. This meant we mostly had one kind of apple, which I was not even sure was of the variety I wanted. I tried to identify the tree for sure in the fall of 2009, but the municipality had cleared the side of the road and cut down all these trees!
Several years of suspense followed. For one reason or another, the grafted tree only started producing this year in 2013, and only the presumably big yellow branches produced some apples. Had we waited all these years for a good apple or a dud?
The news is good. We tried one for the first time this morning and found it quite tasty. They are big apples, but not really yellow. I expect though that they will turn yellow later in the season. The main thing is that they taste good. I would say it is an "eating" apple, but with a very strong taste. This means it will be good for cooking as well.
It might have been better to have used a dwarf rootstock, but the tree I used was already well established in the garden and growing healthily. So all's well that ends well.
We first selected a few varieties we liked. I think there were four different ones: a "Harvest/Yellow Transparent" type, two very tasty kinds of red eating apples and a big one that turns yellow later in the season which was growing wild along the road.
It is recommended that the scions, the branches you graft on the rootstock, be taken late in the autumn when the wood is dormant. You then bury them in sand in a cellar and graft them the next spring when the sap is running. In November 2008, I set out to get my scions. I did not have any problem with the first three varieties but, when it came to the big yellow wild apple, I was no longer sure which was the right tree. It had been obvious in September, when all the big yellow apples were on. But in November, when the fruit was gone, all the apple trees growing wild along the road looked pretty much alike. I should have tied something to a branch to identify the tree I was interested in, but it was too late. Anyhow, I took some scions from what I thought was the right tree and buried them for the winter.
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| Swelling showing where the tree was grafted |
Several years of suspense followed. For one reason or another, the grafted tree only started producing this year in 2013, and only the presumably big yellow branches produced some apples. Had we waited all these years for a good apple or a dud?
The news is good. We tried one for the first time this morning and found it quite tasty. They are big apples, but not really yellow. I expect though that they will turn yellow later in the season. The main thing is that they taste good. I would say it is an "eating" apple, but with a very strong taste. This means it will be good for cooking as well.
It might have been better to have used a dwarf rootstock, but the tree I used was already well established in the garden and growing healthily. So all's well that ends well.
Good for you. This could never happen in my garden; so glad the skills are still out there with amateur gardeners.
ReplyDeleteGood story; glad it worked.
ReplyDeleteVery resourceful. And you saved a heritage apple before the town cut down the tree. Applesauce? Apple pie? Apple cider? Have you read Michael Pollan's chapters about apples in Botany of Desire? You'd enjoy them.
ReplyDeleteAfter all that hard work, it finally bears good fruit. Yes, it did end well and well done for having a go at it.
ReplyDeleteI'm so impressed with your skill and talent. I would never have attempted anything so advanced. And now, all those delicious apples. This fall should be fun for you.
ReplyDeleteI did not talk about my success rate - for each 10 grafts I attempted over the years, at most two have succeeded.
DeleteGood for you! My gardening experience is only four years old; I can't (yet?) imagine being that patient.
ReplyDeleteHad I known it would be so long, I might not have tried!
DeleteHow exciting! It would be amazing to eat a pie from apples you had grown yourself. My son once bit into an apple to discover that the seeds inside had germinated. We planted them into a pot just to see what would happen and they grew! We ended up transplanting the seedlings into the garden but later moved before we could harvest any apples.
ReplyDeleteHow interesting and you carried out a tree rescue too of the parent was cut down.
ReplyDelete