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Fruit & Orchards

Apple varieties, how'd I do?

13 years ago

Well, my trees from Cummins will arrive sometime soon. I've got some apricot, a few peach, 2 sweet cherries and a few plum coming (I really wanted to try the Bubblegum plum). I was curious if anyone had any personal opinions on my apple choices for my northern PA (zone 5) area. My orchard receives nearly full sun, features decent soil and most of it is very well drained.

I've got Ginger Gold, Sweet 16, Pixie Crunch, Kingston Black (my first pure cider apple), Macoun and Rubinette coming this year. Of those, Macoun and Sweet 16 are the only ones that I've previously had. As you can probably tell, I'm a big fan or a tart/sweet apple like Honeycrisp (I already have enough of them and many other varities).

Opinions or thoughts?

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Comments (3)

bruce2288
13 years ago
I have sweet 16 and Rubinette, so I thinnk you did good with them. We will both find out when we get apples.
Dabinette from research not experience-- the best single scource cider,,,,,but prone to scab, prone to canker, biennal. Hopefully your growing conditions will suit it.
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dmtaylor
13 years ago
Those are all great varieties that should work out fine for Zone 5. I've got a 3-year-old Sweet 16 that hasn't fruited yet but there are a TON of fruit buds this year. I'm actually grafting half of this tree over to Kingston Black this spring because I want more cider varieties. I already have one branch of Foxwhelp (actually Fauxwhelp, another supposed cider variety) grafted to my Cortland tree and it appears ready to burst with blossom any day now. Seems to be showing a little pink with the green in the buds right now. If so, the Fauxwhelp will be my first variety to bloom this year, followed by Cortland which has the next biggest buds, with Sweet 16 close behind. Macoun is very similar to Cortland so I think that will be a good choice for Zone 5. Nice thing about the McIntosh family of varieties is that you can use them for eating, pie, juice, sauce -- it's all good -- and I find them to be beautifully shaped trees that grow very well in Zone 5 with minimal need for spreading and pruning. You can't say all these things about many other apple varieties.
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northwoodswis4
13 years ago
Didn't I read on here in the past that Bubblegum plum is just another name for Toka? Northwoodswis
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