apple seed exchange

I would like to acquire about 20 different varieties of apple seeds.    For each variety, I would like to track what that variety is like - because the child will probably be kinda like that. 

The plan is in the late fall to lay down four leaves of hay with an inch gap between them.  Then fill with some soil and plant sixteen apple seeds from one momma tree variety.  Pack tight.  Place one fiberglass post in the middle with a label that says what variety is growing there. 

When the babies come up - keep the strongest three.    Later, keep the strongest one.  Move the label a foot or two away from the tree. 

So I think the first step is to ask folks to start saving apple seeds from their favorite organic varieties of apples. 

If the apple is not a wel known breed, I think it would be good to know:

1)  what time of year is it ripe
2)  what does it look like when ripe:  color, size
3)  what is it strength:  eating?  cider?  pie?  winter keeper?  sauce?  prolific tree?  crisp?  ?? ??

For existing trees, I think the best descriptions can be found at St. Lawrence Nursery

Last night I saved some apple seeds.  A bit of a rinse, dab them dry and then set them out to dry more.

I'm just getting started.  I hope to find seeds for:

Antonovka:  rumor is that it will be true to seed.  The standard for "standard" tree rootstock.  I've heard that in russia, folks prefer the juice of this apple to any other.  I've also heard that this tree is brushy and prolific.

Douglas Wormless:  something I spotted on the SLN page - sounds very resistant to a lot of apple problems.

Transparent (or Lodi):  The earliest apple.  And my grandad had one of these. 

Cameo:  I've eaten a lot of these the last couple of years and I really like them. 

I would like to come up with at least a dozen varieties of winter keepers.  Especially varieties where the apple will stay on the tree through the winter.

So!  Anybody else have any interest in this path?

          Love the drawing. You should be an abstract artist. Maybe polyparadimg was joking about the apple seed growing when she started a forum on sod planted potatoes but maybe she was not tongue in cheek and i am mistaken. Is planting seeds on straw instead of under it a real proven permiculturist method or a joke one.
  in  avideo bill molison said that potatoes will grow out from under straw but other things wont, which fits in with what i once read somewhere about straw having an alleopathic effedt on plants growing under it an inhibiting the growth of other plants, hence you can't simply leave wheat straw on the feilds as a mulch if you want touse it to better the soil in fields you grow it in you have to pick it up let it rot a year or so and reapply it. the leaves of beech trees also inhibit the growth of plants were they fall which could be why gardeners pick up fallen leaves leave them to rot and re-apply them to gardens later. This is to alter the natural cycle of things.

      I have been thinking about sepp holster growing apples from seed and i have wondered if he has not returned to the old fashioned art of self polinating your apple tree flowers with a rabbits tail to make sure that you get the variety you wanted to.
    I killed my peaches by a mistake and they grew back from the roots, the advantage was that they taste more like old fashioned peaches now, i don't like modern ones so that was great, so growing apples from seed could produce some unexpected suprises. 
        I don't cure my peach tree curl i don't like chemicals.
        I read somewhere that is was cottagers that carefull bred different types of flowers not anyone more obviously fancy, in the old days. agri rose macaskie-.
   

I think the mission for potatoes is completely different.

In this drawing, I am planting the seeds in soil next to hay (not "on straw").  There is an important difference between hay and straw.  And I want the seeds to have good seed-to-soil contact - which hay or straw would not provide.

The hay will reduce competition the following spring and enrich the surrounding soil for baby trees. 

Sepp grows apples from seeds?  I guess I wasn't aware of this.  Please tell me more!

rose macaskie wrote:
  polyparadimg...started a forum on sod planted potatoes but maybe she was not tongue in cheek and i am mistaken. Is planting seeds on straw instead of under it a real proven permiculturist method or a joke one.      

The proven methods all make sure the plant can reach soil somehow.

For tiny seeds, a lens of soil is placed onto the mulch and the seeds are sprinkled onto that.

There are also seed balls.  Soil is packed around the seeds before they are sown.  That's what I intended.

If there's a lot of height (or potential for height) to start with, like you mentioned for potatoes, the plant itself can reach from the soil-mulch interface to the sunny mulch surface on its own.

It really doesn't matter in this context, but maybe I should mention: I'm male.

This is a GREAT idea.  I ate a nectorine today and planned to save the seed, threw it to the chickens to clean off and it dissapeared.  I think my pomeranian took it.  Horses were put away so I know it was not them.  I think this planting method is worth trying and plan to with all the fruit seeds I get.

We are getting more and more into apples. We have about 30 old varieties here on the farm, ones that came with it, and have planted about 70 more this past year, plant to do that many again next year.

Most people don't know that apples don't grow true to seed, except a rare handful. You have to graft them onto rootstock to get the same variety. The only apple that's native to North America is the crabapple and curiously they DO grow true to seed.

We may be able to get you some grafts of those breeds, Paul. I'll check and see and get back to you. I've tasted the Antonovka and it's pretty good. We've got a transparent growing on our farm and it drops its fruit in July, great baking apples. I don't know the Douglas Wormless. Cameo is pretty tasty, crisp and tart-sweet.

Jacqueline Freeman
Friendly Haven Rise Farm
www.FriendlyHaven.com

I don't have a clue what variety of apples I have! I can't imagine any apples overwintering on a tree even in my mild climate they would freeze. never heard of any fruit overwintering on a tree I guess is there one?

Jacqueline,

We've had some long, long, long discussions about rootstock, grafting and sepp holzer's interesting form of propogation.  But it is only the apple trees that are grown from seed that have a taproot!  And while the apples grow from seed are rarely able to compete with currently marketable varieties, they are often excellent for the home grower.  And if the fruit turns out to be lame, one can always graft onto the taprooted rootstock.

There are lots of sources for scion wood.  But I have not found any sources for apple seed.  And apple seed is what I would very much like to have!

I'm guessing that all of your transparent apples are all gone - so no more seed there? 

Any chance of collecting some of your other seed?

Paul, to put in apples from seed you might consider leaving the seed in the rotting part of the apple..sometimes you can find seeds already beginning to sprout if the apple is super ripe..

Generally i believe apples tend to be picked too early and the seeds may not be completely ready.

our wild apples have always grown from thrown out apples that were spoiling..rather than from fresh eating apples..but i have eaten apples and found sprouting seeds in them.

the tale of Johnny appleseed was that he planted the cores..don't know if that was true but it makes sense that the seeds are feeding off of the rotting apple..

i'll check and see if there are any apples left on the transparent next door for you..but they may have all been picked by now as the neighbors are here..and they made a bunch of applesauce and stuff last week..it was yummmmoooo

paul wheaton wrote:
Jacqueline,

We've had some long, long, long discussions about rootstock, grafting and sepp holzer's interesting form of propogation.  But it is only the apple trees that are grown from seed that have a taproot!  And while the apples grow from seed are rarely able to compete with currently marketable varieties, they are often excellent for the home grower.  And if the fruit turns out to be lame, one can always graft onto the taprooted rootstock.

Aren't most apple trees grown from seed?  Even the grafted ones are grafted onto seedling apple trees, so i don't see how they would be any different in below the ground growth. 

I thought it was you who said Sepp grew apples from seed or at least that he said he grew them from their own roots which must mean from seed. I did not look up the reference, there are so many  forums that i wonder if i could find it with out spending hours on it, though i dare say i could quite easily.
   Growing trees on their own roots could mean from a cutting as you said earlier.
    It is interesting the bit in your writting about different types of apples. I had not thought of apples that keep their fruit all winter. Can't be much good having them stay on the tree out on the top of mountains were they would freeze, or ones that grow true to type from seed,  industrially grown apples must grow in a big group of the same type of apple i suppose, so are maybe pollinated by the same brand and trees grown from their seeds would grow pretty true to type.  
    I have decided, on starting to think of planting vegetables, of starting to collect all seed i can, that being tomatoes and thats an end to it i suppose. I find it easier to grow from seed i have collected than bought seed, at anyrate not buying it frees me up to try things out more often without really minding if it doesnot work and to get experience.
      the only time i grew a pea it was from a fresh green pea that was shooting in its pod so i planted it. I got one pod of peas on my balcony two months after planting it. Of course if i collect tomatoes and peas and runner beans and melons and cucumbers marrows from the vegetables i buy i would not have a clue if they are genetically modified or what.

         Going back on my original criticism.
     Giving myself a bit of time to think about it, if you put a layer of hay and then of soil, the soil would move down into the hay making a fibrouse soil, anyway the  roots of potatoes planted on top of straw would go down through the hay layer and find the soil layer, i suppose.
 
         Normally when i hear something new i don't get out my pen and start to write about it without thinking. Forums are a new way of communicating for me and it seems i run away with myself. Anyway, my guru, that being, normally, the synthesis of ideas from these times that get through to me, like those that have got into television series, in series they don't usually talk about the origens of the ideas their protagonists  comment on, so that you receive knowledge you can't well check up on. My guru says, plant lots of poisonous plants, which is to say, say the nice and less nice things, then people get used to handling nasties, better at managing the buffeting of the masses the hurly burly. he also say that the pokemon series is right, in a series of verbal duals with each other we learn.
           Is th eidea of burying straw mulch becoming huglekultur? We start to bury the mulch instead of putting it on top under the influence of huglekulture ideas and so who knows what will work with out trying? agri rose macaskie. macaskie.  

In studying cherry trees I found this... http://www.davewilson.com/homegrown/BOC_explained.html ;

I am with you on a tap root being so important and this guy is big on the rootstock being right.  He (well ok ,not he but his guy Tom) has some radical ideas on tree spacing and summer pruning.  What do you all think? 

I am still studying but think I will buy my trees from Nature Hills.  They have both rairier and van cherries and also a fig hardy to zone 5.  Figs in zone 5???  Gonna get me one of those too.

I have written a whole lot without reading the others first.
  Brenda Goth says plant the apple core as well as the seed. I was wandering about that as i picked out the seed from a crab apple a week or two ago, to grow. Here a crab tree is worth much more than eating apples, they are called decorative apples and a tree of them costs sixty euros in nurseries while an ordinary apple cost less than twenty. I thought of growing them, i don't know if i want to sell them or just that it might be a good present, also i want more of them and they are great for jam an d perhaps for the fauna. Well what i thought is, the flesh of apples absorbs so much water, maybe its good for the seed, maybe the rotten or dried apple can set up a store of water for its seeds when it rains. I have also noticed when cutting apples that apple juice makes my skin feel soft.
  I read, in one book that peeled grated apple is good for diarrhea and i have always given it to my children if they were vomiting, boiled grated  carrot was the other recipe, but grated apple tastes better. It seems to work they have never had really bad and persistent diarrhea though.
  Crabs have pretty fruit as well as pretty flowers.
    As to winter fruit, you pick meddler fruit after the first frost have fallen, i was told they tasted odd and the first one i tried was rotten but they are meant to taste odd so i was not surprised when this one did. I tried one again  the next year, a bit earlier in the winter maybe and they tasted more like dates than anything else, which is to say good.

      I have a short apricot and plum hedge grown from seeds. They grow very fast after the first two, I reckon, years, I have a hazy idea of when i planted each stone and how long it stayed on my balconies.
      I have seen lemon seeds germinating in the lemons, incredible, how could they grow in such an acid place. A gardening book said most lemon trees had grown from pips planted in pots on balconies and so i tried it, it works though the climates not quite hot enough for lemons in Madrid.
        It is a good idea planting pips in some pot of plants you have, as you water the plant you water the pip or stone and it does not matter if it does not start to grow for a year and a half, which happens with some fruits, they germinate on the second spring, as you are watering whatever plant it is you don't give up on them.
        Things grow bigger quicker in the garden than on my balconies, as they have much more hours of light, i suppose, maybe the earth their has more things in it that help plants than my flower pots do.  If you plant date stones palms grow, though mine would not grow bigger than it did the first year. It just grew two leaves. Privet grows easily from seed we have wild privet and acacias and the wild yellow jasmin that grows in Guadalajara, Spain, it has black fruits and buck thorn that grows by the rivers i have not tried the cathartic buckthorn yet that also grows wild and is pretty. I have grown olives carfully banging the stone with a hammer to get the seed out with out breaking it, get lots of olive to practice hammering on you need to get it just right they need quite a hard hit and if its too hard they get smashed.  You have to get your olives from a tree not from a salted olive.
  I have grown oaks but they did not survive being transplanted, i have been told to grow them in a half pipe, i don't know how to keep them watered in a half pipe unless i try it on my balconies, then their main root grows sideways instead of into the ground and it is easier to dig it up without hurting it. They don't like having their tap root broken off. the other thing is just to bury acorns were i want the trees. 
        I have grown more trees than vegetables some of those i grew from seed on balconies i just planted in the garden, the olives for example, without really looking after them and they did not survive that. I have had no success with junipers or with maples, except a juniper cutting did succeed, that my husband put a drip just on top of, so a drip for some minutes a day right on the leaves of the cutting seems to be good for juniper cuttings. That was in my box for delicate things that has a bit of sort of woven plastic  material on top of it to reduce the rigors of the spainish sun. So no luck with what i wanted most, though having no luck is what makes you want.
  Throw the stones of fruit in your flower bed, you forget about them and then feel really pleased when you find a cherry tree a year or two later. I don't weed my flower bed much.
    In the mediteranean, places that are by the sea don't get frosts or rarely so, that sort of place might be good for apple trees whose apples did not fall in winter. America is such a big country most parts must have and extreme climate, cold winters and hot summers near the sea things are milder, the winds of the sea moderate the weather. By the sea they don't have that real weather Paul Wheaton likes, but they have the sea.
  Another good tip i read was, not all seeds are viable, pick or collect lots, be greedy and imoderate. agri rose macaskie.

Brenda Groth wrote:
the tale of Johnny appleseed was that he planted the cores..don't know if that was true but it makes sense that the seeds are feeding off of the rotting apple..

The story I got was that he was a real-estate developer, exploiting the distortions of ag legislation and a speculative bubble in a rapidly-expanding market. 

He had a tandem canoe, from what I've read, and every year would put himself and his gear in one hull, and mash from cider mills in the other.  He would travel upstream to where he expected settlement to reach in the right amount of time, find the choicest spots, and plant small apple orchards.  He then would sell these plots to settlers, who paid a premium because they were legally required to plant a certain number of fruit trees in order to demonstrate their long-term commitment to the land.  The people he sold to were mostly speculators, otherwise they might have been in the market for trees producing palatable fruit.

But I'm a bit cynical.  Maybe it wasn't like that.

Somehow I always thought jaohnny appleseed had a big sack of .... Apple seeds.  Not so?

The seed with the core thing makes sense.  And the wisdom about seeds not being ready makes sense too.  

I suspect that dry seed planted the way I mention would work okay, although I am not completely certain.

Transparent:  I probably will have to wait until next year - but if you could score some seeds that would be excellent!

I have a bag of old cherrys and a bag of old seeded grapes in my fridge now, what do you think?  I want to copy you, it should work yes? Plant the whole fruit.  Myabe I will also plant one of each fruit in a pot, just to see what happens.

Rose I have a wonderful tiny little crab apple tree, it is a POLE variety and it has the prettiest flowers and fruit on it..the fruit is on it now and i haven't tested it yet..but it looks nearly ripe or ripe.

I have also grown several oaks from seed..My sister used to live in an oak woods, and one time in 1970's when i visited her place the acorns all over the ground were sprouting..they were splitting open and the root was coming out ..some were in the ground already but some were not..so I gathered about a dozen and planted them at my home..they grew very quickly..for oaks..

My FIL was coming down with Alzheimers and he mowed down all but one in my yard..one lived at my sons several years but had to be removed when his drainfield went in..so only one is alive now..after 30 +years..but it is beautiful..and i love the way it grew and where it is..

we also have a red oak on our property and the critters seed the babies all over our property, even way back in our woods..so occasionally we will find a baby oak tree growing...but honestly..the ones i planted from the srpoute acorns grew better, quicker and straighter..maybe cause theyw eren't in the woods or where they weren't cared for?

as for leaving apples on the trees for the winter..some people leave them on for the wildlife..but they eventually generally fall off on their own..however crabs will remain on longer for some reason..maybe they have a stronger stem.

LoonyK wrote:
Aren't most apple trees grown from seed?  Even the grafted ones are grafted onto seedling apple trees, so i don't see how they would be any different in below the ground growth. 

And then they are transplanted.  The transplanting is, apparently, the death of the tap root.

rose macaskie wrote:
I thought it was you who said Sepp grew apples from seed or at least that he said he grew them from their own roots which must mean from seed.

Sepp does have a fascinating technique of propagating trees that are non grafted.  But it is not from seed.  He sort of forced the tree to sucker from a long root and then transplants those suckers.  Interesting - but I think they would not have the coveted tap root.

If I ever said anything about sepp growing apple trees from seeds, then my memory must be faulty and I would appreciate a link to where I said that!  But without the link ....  I'm gonna have to say that sepp does not make a habit of planting apple trees from seed that I am aware of.

listenstohorses wrote:
In studying cherry trees I found this... http://www.davewilson.com/homegrown/BOC_explained.html   

I am with you on a tap root being so important and this guy is big on the rootstock being right.  He (well ok ,not he but his guy Tom) has some radical ideas on tree spacing and summer pruning.  What do you all think? 

I think those philosophies are very conventional.  And Sepp's philosophies are radically different.  And what I am suggesting here is even more different!

Well I agree that you are at the very top of the interesting new idea class, but it is the first I had heard of 3 trees in one hole planting or summer pruning. 

I am very much looking forward to hearing about your apple seeds.  I planted a whole grape today with you in mind (in a pot but if it grows will do in-ground after I know what the seedlings look like).  I also have several cherries I plan to plant and see if I can get that all important tap root. 

By the way, I bought standard trees and will plant one per planter... but will maybe one day try 3 trees in the same hole.

listenstohorses wrote:
I have a bag of old cherrys and a bag of old seeded grapes in my fridge now, what do you think?  I want to copy you, it should work yes? Plant the whole fruit.  Myabe I will also plant one of each fruit in a pot, just to see what happens.

I'm not sure what would happen with cherries.  I, for one, would really like to know:  taproot?  edible fruit? 

paul wheaton Sepp holzer did not say seed, he said he grew them on their own root and i imagined it might have been from seed. At first i thought that he grew them prehaps from cuttings and then I forgot that and thought that he grew them from seed.

  loony k. i like you contributions but in this case you are wrong, maybe you are jokeing. The roots aren't necessarily the same as the top bit, they chose some sort of really hardy tree for root stock, like a crab apple and inhert the branches of other more delicat trees on to the root stock of the hardy tree,  though they have to grow the root stock from seed. You can put variouse types of apples on the same tree. The root stock is all the roots and a trunk and you stick the branches of the varieties you want on the trunk.
  The tap root is the root that goes right down into the earth and usually there aren't many of them, trees have to be pretty old to put down variouse taproots, i think. Most roots are in the root plate that only goes down bit i can't remember how much, i was whatching a documentary of some people moving a tree and most of the roots ran parrelel to the ground in  some thing like two foot if i remember right. I have a foto of half the root plate hanging over the edge of a quarry. I will post it with this. It is, as usual an encina, evergreen oak. agri rose macaskie.
   

    As to cherries from seed, there are cherries that they call natural to there all round where my house is and they are starting to appear in my garden but i think they are probably not so much wild cherries as cherries that the birds who eat cherries have ejected, the children of cultivated cherries. Foxes and badgers eat fruit in autumn and leave seeds everywhere. i have lots of photos of badger does full of seeds. The cherries are fine.
  They certainly grow from seed i have thrown seed in the part of my garden that is near the house  and several trees have appeared only one of which i have transplanted successfully.
  As the house is at a thousand feet i have brought the sort of cherry they call a guinda here, it grows even higher in gredos so i thought it might be hardier than the ones the bird seed. 
  Urban Terrorist gardening is partly about putting tree seeds in lawns in smart gardens, at least Bill Mollison does it on his videos.
  I have been busier growing trees because trees take so long to grow that i have concentrated on them first. These forums are getting me to start trying vegetables. agri rose macaskie.

I talked to my brother last night wha has grown fruit trees from seed for many years.  He and his kids have tryed every seed or stone they had had for 20+ years.  If the tree was not to his liking he grafted onto it.  He is very knowladgeable in this.

He said he has started many cherry trees from seed but has yet to get one to live in his climate for more than 3 years.  He says too hot there.  He starts cherry stones in the fridge in damp sand for several months.  When starting to break shell he plants outside.

He has many kinds of ctirus and pomagranite that fruit well, and many fruit salad trees.  If anyone is interested in buying his home in Moreno Valley CA, full of trees, let me know.  He is not online.

Cherries seem to be difficult, there is not enough sun or heat for them in England and its to hot for them in California.  
    Two of the cherries that the man had sold me the house planted, to make the garden more attractive to buyers, heaven knows why, it was cheap but he seemed to think he had to bust himself to sell it, have died, one has survived, maybe its too hot for them. These cherries had been grafted, maybe they would be stronger growing as the wild ones round there do, from their own roots.

  He had also cut contour channels into the the hill to used for watering the trees so that you could put on the hose and they would take the water down the garden but he did not have a berm of absorbent organic matter on the down slope side of the canal as permaculturists do, to absorb lots of water. I did not use it, and now i have read about permaculture systems i am kicking myself, i will have to try and distinguish were they were and try and re-open them.
     Digging irrigation canals on the contours is something the Spaniards learnt from the Moroccans when Spain was conquered by the moors, the Islamic nations were good at irrigation systems. The Alhambra palace gardens are full of canals and fountains. Islamic people believe a that water should not stand, still water might poison some dog who was thirsty.
        The permacultura canal in dry climates is made so the water will stand in it as far as i can make out, only going on to fill the next one when the water in it overflows and this standing water permeates the earth bit by bit, what they look for is a well permeated bit of ground for their fruit trees
 
      For people who don't like hippie ideas the engineering part of permaculture philosophy also seeems to be part of normal land engineering culture. Things like terraces and irrigation and how to get the available water to permeat the ground well, are things that engineers do, i have looked it up in my American book on farming techniques with a prologue by the famous US, green, Hugh Hammond Bennett, they are techniques that rich farmers might put in, or forestry agents, to help the growth of forests or stop erosion on a big scale. Permaculturists, as far as i can make out, apply these things on a smaller scale, to more humble exploitations, like gardens and small farms, or they teach to nonprofessionals, make the general public aware of them, put all techniques at the disposition of all. Though the most famous ones such as Sepp and Bill Mollison seem to also direct or advise on big projects as well as small ones.

   Fate has had me always living at a hundred yards from an agricultural book shop though I hardly ever used it in the first place i lived in. I am much to lazy about displacing my self to have given the time to going through the books to find the best ones if that had not been the case. I should think i would look through the books for a good hour or two often, several times before deciding to buy them a lot of them are expensive books and if the shop had not been on the route to the shops i would never have brought them. It has hsut a year or so ago. Also we have a drug store near by called VIPs that sells really cheap fancy gardening books on Japanese gardens and such.
 My mother used to take me to buy books as a child, she did not take me to buy records and buying books is easy for me as an adult but buying records i find really embarrassing, i think i will make a fool of myself, I don't mind looking stupid buying stupid books though.

          I used the Spanish word  "inhert" instead of the English "graft· earllier on on this forum sorry. Hows it done? I can read it up and write it down myself but maybe someone who is an expert can write it down.

         Love to buy his house if it was for free, what a dream, lots of fruit trees in California. Suppose California's big so not all of its a dream. agri rose macaskie.

I will try, if my brother was on here it would be great.  Here it is as explained to "baby sister"...

Take the rootstock of proper size, cut the top off in a zig-zag angled cut.  (now here it is much easier to show or draw a zig-zag angled cut)  Take the branch you want to be a tree, cut it to match, tape together. 

Take tree you want to add a branch to and make a notch, take a small branch, again make the end fit, and tape. 

This is all much like a jigsaw puzzle, the better the fit the more sucessfull.  He uses this to balance a tree or to maintain shape, I mean he just grafts stuff to see what happens.. for fun, same as his growing trees from seed.

As children we watched our father plant fruit tress and were fascinated.  It is almost a family tradition.  My other brother is a landscape artist.

  listeningtohorses thanks for advice on grafting, will try it,the idea of just trying for fun helps, its a good way to get practice. agri rose macaskie.

Of course that was the simplified version and I left out how very important it is to CLEAN YOUR TOOLS.  Also to keep costs down he uses small twigs of boughten trees and seedings, or branches from one home grown to another, again just for fun/practice. 

I am guessing, as I didn't ask, but it seems to me that it may be best done in the early spring as the sap rises...I will ask him anything you all want to know.

i woudl not know what to ask untill i tried it. agri rose.

A big part of the dream in California is that we contain multitudes.  I can walk 15 blocks and on the way home, shop as though I were in Korea or the Middle East.  I can drive two hours and be in any of several styles of city, rainforest, desert, glacier, almost any sort of body of water and most of the major sorts of ecosystem.

Many dream of San Diego, but I found the culture distasteful compared to Oakland.

Decided to contribute something useful - an article in Russian about them growing apple trees from seed far north.
Grafted apple trees die in extreme cold, seed-grown flourish but take 17 years to start bearing fruit.
100 kilos from tree. smaller apples, but tree lives longer and less disease prone.

Antonovka will grow well from seed, and you can buy seeds online from Russia.
I will order some next year.
http://www.cofe.ru/garden/article.asp?heading=47&article=12119

EcoHouse wrote:
Antonovka will grow well from seed, and you can buy seeds online from Russia.
I will order some next year.
http://www.cofe.ru/garden/article.asp?heading=47&article=12119

I'll try to remember to look you up in 17 years!

I might even own property by then. 

  Gosh a person to back up Sepp on apples, eco house says that seed grown apple trees are hardier. and very productive. Its sure worth talking about things. agri rose macaskie.

Polyparadimg, Lots of shops from different parts of the world, in california, Londons great like that lots of people from different places and shops and restaurants from different places, but the lanscape is really tame in comparison, to judge from your description. Its strange, again the films had not made me realise it was that nice. agri rose macaskie.

wednesday's snacking update

OK in eating my fruit, cheese and cracker snack I ran across a long sprout on one of my apple seeds..ok ..you know me I couldn't resist..i gathered 3 ripe seeds from this loverly apple and took them out and buried them about an inch in the mulchy soil of my front garden..about 20 ' apart and about 10' from the front of my house..i know..kinda close but farther out they would have been near lawn..not good

so.

i will be making a note to watch for baby trees..i'm honestly only hoping for one..and that would be the one with the long root growing when i ate my snack.

no label on the apple but i'm thinking it might be a Braeburn (as i love them) or something similar..sure it won't probably turn out to be a Braeburn..but it might..who knows..turn out to be a loverly apple.

will try to remember to let you know in 10 to 15 years..

Brenda,
I hope to be right here in 10 to 15 years to trade stories with you. 

  Brenda Groth , at first it seemed that you story of apple seeds was a sort mounring, a memorising of happy days when your husband was well and went shooting and how you had both enjoyed the sweet and transpernet apple near the house, and how there was a sourer one in the woods a poetic and emotional peice and now it has changed to a more here and now happyness, it is a great sorrow having your husband ill i suppose. agri rose.

i did not mean to sound sour or mourning..as I don't really feel that way. I accepted the situionat here many many years ago, sure I wish he wasn't so strongly medicated and was more able to enjoy doing things..but  I'm prepared to live with the situation and enjoy life.

I love my life here in my home..i love my property..yes i do see a lot of difficult times in the future esp with him unable to do a lot and me partially handicapped..but if we can't do it..and someone else won't..it just won't get done.

i guess sometimes i may sound sour..or mournful..but i really really am a happy person and enjoy what i have and what i have been given, i am blessed.

We have a very old apple tree in our yard which I would guess is at least 70 years old.  It is too tall/big to give it proper care and it seems like it should be dead because it is completely hollow, but it still produces very tasty apples.





I don't know the variety but am conversing with an apple expert who is trying to help me figure it out.

More photos: http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/slideshow/574529896JFpGyf

Paul, if you want some seeds from this tree let me know.

I have grown several apple trees from seed with varying results.   One is super healthy and producing apples which taste good but are not as good as the parent apple (flesh is kind of grainy).  Another has been doing battle with deer for 10 years and is finally this year starting to win the battle.  So no apples from that one yet.  Another one also planted 10 years ago, never could recover from deer nibbling so I finally cut it down (all 2 feet of it).

There are a number of other old apple trees around here that I encounter regularly, let me know if you want any of those.  They are all dropping apples right now.

Apple trees have been in this area (Camas/Vancouver, WA) since 1826 - http://www.columbiariverimages.com/Regions/Places/old_apple_tree.html (this is the oldest apple tree in the Northwest).  Although I do not think mine is a descendant of this tree.