fruit
Apple (and pear)
If you have one tree, learn to keep it. Fresh fruit, cider, sauce, dried rings.
Old farmsteads around Dillsboro still have trees. A neglected apple is still an apple.
- When to sow
- Plant bare-root in March. Grafting is how varieties stay true — seedlings are a lottery.
- Spacing
- Semi-dwarf 12–15 ft. Standard 25 ft.
- Days
- Years. Fruit on wood 2–4 years old.
- Harvest
- Variety-dependent, August–October. A ripe apple leaves the spur with a twist and brown seeds.
- Store
- 32–38°F, humid, away from potatoes. Winesap, Arkansas Black, and GoldRush keep. Summer apples do not — sauce them.
- Save seed
- Don’t, for variety. Learn whip-and-tongue grafting in March.
- Companions
- Comfrey and chives at the drip line. Keep redcedar at a distance (cedar-apple rust).
- Pests
- Codling moth — pick up every drop every week. Curculio. For a survival orchard, sanitation beats spray.
- A windfall cider press day in October is worth more morale than the calories.
- Pears want to be picked firm and ripened inside or they go gritty.