The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Food & crafts => Home brewing => Topic started by: Russpig on February 02, 2021, 05:01:19 pm

Title: Cider/apples?
Post by: Russpig on February 02, 2021, 05:01:19 pm
Looking at maybe planting 2 or 3 apple trees.

We were thinking more for cider but obviously be good eater aswell if we didn't do the cider.

We are in South west Scotland.

Can anyone suggest the best variety's and how long from planting before bearing fruit?
Title: Re: Cider/apples?
Post by: arobwk on February 02, 2021, 06:45:40 pm
Scottish members will be better placed than me to suggest varieties and/or rootstocks that do well where you are: I would also hope/think that any local grower or garden centre would avoid varieties that won't do well in your neck of the woods.


If buying from a non-local seller, just give 'em a call:  they should "know their apples" LOL.
 




 








 
Title: Re: Cider/apples?
Post by: naturelovingfarmer on May 04, 2021, 09:38:25 pm
I don't know which varieties you've got available. But if you're making cider, no matter whether it is sweet or hard, you'll need a sweet apple, a bitter apple, a tart apple, and a spicy apple. Additionally, the flesh should not be as crisp as cooking apples or even fresh eating types, or the fruit crusher will struggle. How many apples of each type you put in a batch of cider is up to your tastes. You can feed the rest to your stock. But something to consider is going to apple farms nearby and sampling the various varieties. I ended up with 13 kinds of apple this way.

If you want to DIY it, you could buy cuttings from a farm of the apples you like and graft them onto rootstocks from seed grown apples. Basically, you plant apple seeds somewhere in your land that has the worst exposure to the weather and the ones that sprout and survive to 2 years old become rootstocks. Then you just graft on the kind of apple you want to grow. The tree will be selected for the good qualities this way naturally. If you have a bunch of 2 year survivors, use the largest and most vigorous for rootstocks.
Title: Re: Cider/apples?
Post by: Dan on May 05, 2021, 09:08:12 am
I can recommend Andrew Lear at Appletreeman - https://plantsandapples.com/

We're on the east coast of Scotland and when we planted our orchard 10 years ago I'd made a list of mostly Scottish varieties I thought would be good to grow. We changed a lot of them on Andrew's advice that we had more in common with East Anglia than we did with the west coast of Scotland when it came to growing apples.

As for time to bearing fruit, planting maiden whips you'll be looking at 3-4 years before you can take any quantity, and 8-9 years to approach full yield.