Apple Trees

Friday, November 04, 2022

Grant Keats dropped off a bag of apples. I extracted the cores and set the flesh to simmer in a large pot.

The cores weigh one pound.

I load three seed trays with sieved soil. It certainly is handy to have a stockpile of pebble-free soil.

Sixty seven cores.

I then cover the cores with another shovel of sieved soil.

Sixty-seven cores. I have not grown trees from apples like these before, but if I estimate ten seedlings from each core, then ... Grant Keats's generous gift might span around six hundred and seventy apple trees in Bonavista.

Thursday, July 27, 2023

You can see the keats Apples being transplanted today on my Diary Page

The Two-Tree Principle

I had two queries about this on the same day this week – from two different sets of visitors) “Don’t you have to have two apple trees to pollinate?”

I always respond “yes”, for while I don’t know if it’s true, I don’t know that it’s NOT treue, and my aim is to give away as many apple trees (and pear trees and maple trees and ...) as I can cram into the trunk of your car.

I cross the road and take a photo of an apple tree, about a hundred yards away at the far end of the vacant lot opposite my house.

I swing around through 180 degrees and take a photo of a second apple tree, two doors down from me, just beyond the two cars.

Each year both trees bear apples.

I suspect that these trees count as two trees.

An apple tree must be close enough to another apple tree so that bees and other pollinators can travel between the two.

I suspect that if you have the only apple tree in Muddy Hole and the closest apple tree is in Upper Burgeo , then your apple tree in Muddy Hole might be fertile but sadly unpollinated. What bee is going to commute over twenty-five kilometres for a one-way load of 50mg of nectar? Over water!

My reasoning for two trees runs as follows:-

If you do not know of an apple tree within a hundred metres of your home, then take two or more apple trees so that you can be certain that you have two trees close enough for a bee to convey pollen.

If you are worried about your gardening skills, take four trees to increase your chances of two surviving your efforts.

Best yet is to take twelve apple trees; plant two on your house lot, and give two apple trees to your neighbours to each side of you, and two apple trees to the neighbours behind and to the sides of you.

In this way you can be confident that all your trees will be pollinated, and you can assure your neighbours that their trees too will be pollinated.

I would never admit this in public (grin) but this too is a way for me to persuade people to take twelve trees off my property – I need the space!

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