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Well, I think I have to go along with Alan on this
one. It wasn't little dwarf trees that inspired me to want to grow
apples. It was all those nice big trees 30-50 years old that I kept
encountering that dripped fruit all over the ground. My kids ate
a LOT of dried apples while they were growing up. I was sending their
lunches to save money when I found out they were trading their dried apples for
all sorts of sugary desserts. The other kids went hog wild for them,
whereas my kids had never tasted most of the commercial stuff they were being
offered in exchange. One large tree behind a house we rented had tart
apples that were incredible dried. Sweet apples are ok dried, but tart
ones are the best.
Now my son up there in Olympia
WA talked about all the bushels of fruit he got from the trees already on his
place when they bought it. I imagined huge trees along a long
driveway. It boggled my mind when I actually saw them. They were
trimmed like 6-8' diameter table tops on chunky M9 rootstocks. He says
he's let them grow more naturally. Seems like he said something like 30
bushels this year. So I can see that that too would be inspiring, but
there's nothing like them around here. Especially here, on the Highland
Rim, I've nearly forgotten what happy apple trees look like. We do see
them when we go up on the Plateau, but nothing like as big as they got over in
the Tenn Valley. Donna
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