Greg explains some amazing traits of apple trees. Bob shares some of the fascinating facts about John Chapman better know as Johnny Appleseed.
Related episode: Walnut Woods
Our sources for this episode include:
- The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
- Johnny Appleseed Man and Myth by Robert Price
When I was a kid, my family had a small orchard of about 100 trees. Which meant a lot of work in the fall as our family of 4 did all the picking and care. Our biggest year was well over 700 bushels. We had several different kinds of apples. One of my favorites was the wolf river apple which I would like to find to plant for myself someday. The first time I had any idea what grafting was, was when we had a tree where the graft eventually died off and the base part grew up. It gave us one tree that had really tart apples that I loved! Even now over 40 years later we get apples. I guess you would call them organic LOL! It became too expensive for my dad to keep up his certifications for the chemicals used in an orchard.
What kind of apples are those in the pix ?
They are Gold Rush apples.