All around the South Otago area there are self seeded/bird seeded apple trees. Each of these apple trees are unique, unlike the grafted fruit trees we buy at the garden centres. Just like our genetic variations in human reproduction, when grown from seed apples throw huge genetic variation too. So when grown from seed they will never be the same as the mother tree.
On the road from our house to Clutha there are around 15 apple trees and then many more in the surrounding area. Over the past couple of years I've collected them for our pigs as they were not great quality but this year they all seemed to have such great crops that looked amazing, so I thought maybe I should try them myself. Some are more cooking apples while others like the ones below are delicious eating type apples. Not the biggest but full of flavour.
Over the next couple of days I will be grabbing some more from the other few trees that have nice apples on them and giving them to friends and family to eat or process. I went along to the Riverton Harvest Festival and learnt alot about heritage apples. So over winter I will take cuttings from each tree and labeling them with the location and a tree number. In spring I will be learning how to graft them on to rootstock and come up with some names for these particular varieties since they are effectively a new variety of apple.
These trees have grown naturally, without human interference, no sprays, no synthetic fertilizer and hammered by wind yet they still keep going and growing strong. I always think a plant grows best where it chooses to grow and only the strongest will survive.
I will be taking note of all apple trees i find around our area and documenting these on a map so we can identify what purpose each apple are good for. This way when each tree is ready to harvest we can donate the fruit to the local community and know exactly how to use each apple. This is definitely a long term pet project but one that I think will be beneficial to so many.
