Thursday 8 September 2016

Dwarf Apple Tree with 75 apples

It's early September and my apple tree is full of apples. It appears that we will get an abundance of apples for our annual apple crisp bake-off!  
This dwarf tree has been pruned to about 6 feet tall and has 5 different apple branches grafted on a non-apple rootstock that will keep the tree short and manageable. Great for a small garden or city backyard folks who want to grow an apple tree but don't have space for the larger varieties.
My variety is a M7 or M9 type that will stay around 6'-10' (I'm not sure of the exact type because it only said dwarf on the tag). The M designation comes from the East Malling Research Centre in jolly old England where research has catalogued 1,000's of apple trees from centuries past. Hence the letter M precedes the designated number. That's enough about the details.
I counted 75 apples on the tree! Pretty amazing considering the size of the tree and the damage caused by mice ringing the tree during the winter. However, so far the tree has survived and I plan on harvesting them in early October.
Take a look at the You Tube video below and hopefully you will get inspired to plan an apple tree next spring. Plant an apple tree, my friend.


1 comment:

Val said...

Great video, Garry! I wish we had room for a dwarf apple tree but our yard is too small unfortunately. 75 apples! That is great!