I picked some of the early fall ripening apples. This year the Liberty apples are some of the first. I think my approach of grating multiple varieties to each tree had some merit. Not only does that help with pollination, but there are different varieties in the same space, and they ripen at different times, spreading out the harvest. I label the Liberty apples for Ning. They are his favorite. I like them too.
This year a King David apple graft, a heritage cultivar first grown in Arkansas, had its first apples. It's not very vigorous, and needed about 4 or 5 years. They turned out to be quite tasty, good texture, nice in every way. Small, which is fine. I don't care for giant size apples.
The King David apples.
Some of the Liberty apples.
This year I'm storing them in a shed, where they should be cooler than when I stored them in the garage. I'm also putting them on newspaper and trying to avoid stacking them.
I found some King David apples on the USDA pomological watercolor website. As with other images, I edited a little for size and clarity.
This is the description for King David on orange pippin website "one of the lesser-known apples that were promoted by the famous Stark Brothers nursery at the end of the 19th century... discovered as a chance seedling...but most authorities agree that Jonathan is one of the parents, and it has the aromatic qualities associated with that variety. The other parent is believed to be Winesap or Arkansas Black, and visually it has a resemblance to the latter." I usually like any apple with Jonathan genes. They have a flavor that stands out very nicely.
These are really good. Maybe I will graft a scion from this graft, onto some super dwarfing scion for my miniature fruit tree mini orchard.
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