Johnny Appleseed Brings Some “Whimsy” To Our Orchard

     “The most important ingredient in the welfare of an orchard is the sound of the orchardist’s  footsteps.”

      Wecome to our new blog!   There is SO MUCH I want to share with you about our life in the country.    I think tonight I’ll just stick to the topic of apples.   Here are some interesting facts about apples:    

Did you know…..

Apple trees need to sleep in the winter.  You won’t find apple trees in warm areas.  On average they need 1700 hours of cold weather below freezing each Winter in order to thrive.

Apples are NOT native to America.  They came over by boat.  There are over 2000 different varieties world wide, with  over 800 varieties in America.

Do you know what is worse than finding a worm in your apple?….a 1/2 a worm.  sorry…I couldn’t resist.

We planted 120 apple trees in 2002, 2003.  Eight different varieties, a mixture for eating, cooking and making cider.  The first month after we planted the new trees, they looked awesome.    I found out that deer also like apple trees…not only do they like the fruit (it’s like candy to them)  they like the new suculent branches.  Within two nights the deer had eaten 80% of the branches of our new orchard.  I was sick.  Fortunately, someone told me about a deer fence sold  by Premier fences 

http://www.premier1supplies.com/deer/species.php?mode=article&species_id=7 

 Which did the trick.  If you are having trouble with deer…this type of fence is 90% effective inkeeping them out.

     On a different note,  last year I had this idea of trying to find out if any of the trees Johnny Appleseed planted in the 1800’s were still in existance.   He was a real person.  His name was John Chapman.  There is a lot of legend that has developed around him as a person.  His passion was planting apple trees ahead of the pioneers moving West.  He planted trees in Penn. Ohio and Indiana, and possibly Illinois.  To make a long story short,    there is an organization called American Forest historic trees that has grafted starters from a  tree known to be planted by John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed)….So last year we purchased 2 of them ..check out this link:  http://www.historictrees.org/produ_ht/johnappl.htm

Newly planted apple trees take between 5 to 7 years before they being to bear much fruit.  Last year we harvested about 35 crates of apples….The trees we planted were mostly semi dwarf.  That means when they are mature, they will stand 15 to 18 feet tall, and produce up to two bushels of apples per tree.    If you have any questions or tips about growing apples be sure to drop me a note.  I am still very much in the “learning” phase.  I had an older orchardist mentoring me, but he passed away a couple of years ago now.  Thanks for reading!

“So every healthy tree bears good fruit.”  Matthew 7:17

 ESV