Our Orchard Had a Baby: A New Apple!

One of the lesser known byproducts of having an orchard is the possibility of wildlife spreading the seeds of your fruit. This year, I got to taste the first fruit from one of these "volunteer" trees!

[@3FeathersFarmstead]

Heck yes! The flavors should develop even more over the next few growing seasons! Excited to see what comes of it.

[@jilljones2240]

I bet they would make a good jelly

[@DomesticKrys]

I’ve never actually tried a crab apple! Will they grow to be a full size apple? Sounds delicious!

[@HonestHomesteading]

While they can vary some in size depending on how much fruit the tree sets each year and other weather conditions, they aren't ever going to be much different in size than what you saw here since the general size is set by genetics. At our last property we regularly made jelly from one of the 7 crabapple trees we had there - but it was the only one big enough and tasty enough to be worth working with! You likely haven't been missing out on much!

[@jjorangeswirl]

Interesting. So when two full sized apples cross they can make a crabapple?

[@HonestHomesteading]

I guess so! Crabapples are not a separate kind of tree from apples. The name crabapple is just a simple way of describing that the fruit is less than two inches in diameter, so it is genetically possible. It's also possible that I have misidentified possible parents to it, but given we don't have any nearby crabapples - on our land or our neighbors - I am guessing that the parents of this tree are right there in our orchard!