Hurrah - English apples are back!

A small scale Devon Apple grower, Apple juice and Cider producer told me about how they were planting with 2 sizes/different rootstocks at closer than intended final distances between trees, so the (quicker to produce?) smalller temporary trees would be producing crops whilst the larger, permanent trees were growing, providing an increased yield in the early years, the intention being that the dwarf trees would be removed when the larger trees would take over.

Can't remember the precise details, but it was around 15 years ago and we were drinking lots of their cider that weekend.

 

Thank you folks. I know with drawrfs you can get a couple of varieties grafted onto the one tree which interests me. I have no notion of 100's of lb's of apples. Just some for different jobs and mostly to enjoy them!

I live in Northern Ireland so availability is limited. Can you folks recommend a good mainland seller of fruit trees and in paticular dwarfs? Gogle brings up plenty but Ive bought rubbish before and had to pay hefty postage for stuff I could get here. We do have a single Dobbies shop that does dwarfs but it's expensive!

 

Apples for pressing today.

Blenheims and Cookers on the left.The green ones in last 3 boxes to the right are from a NT property car park planting scheme , bad to eat, but will provide the tannin and acid required for cider making, a trial batch using them together with juice from eating apples produced an authentic tasting cider as if made from proper cider apples.

Got another 200lbs or so of Russet windfalls to press tomorrow.

 

I grow Cornish Aromatic, Egremont Russett, Darcy Spice and Pitmaston Pineapple. James Grieve also, but it is not doing well. Darcy Spice is fantastic straight from tree but doesn't seem to keep despite claims that it does.
@Greecko - I bought mine (a long time ago) from Deacons Fruit Tress - they have a large choice on quite a range of rootstocks

 

I've never bought from here but I drive past it every day, they once appeared in an article in the RHS journal.
I think the bloke who runs it really knows his stuff.
Mid season eating apple trees for sale | Buy fruit trees online
He does mail order and bare root on different rootstocks.

Or you could try Brogdale.
Product categories Apple Trees – Self Fertile

 

You've been busy Scrungee! Unfortunately in NI there is only one area, County Armagh (Not sure why, supposedly theyve a difference climate despite being 30 mins from where I live which isnt an area for fruit growing) and all of them are on farms so I rarely if ever see a wild apple tree to pick and know of only 3 crab apples on all of our land.

 

My Russet tree has cropped well this year, already pressed 160 lbs, another 110 lbs today, have approx. 140 lbs ready to press and there's still some on the tree (probably under it by the end of today's winds).

Looks like being a 1,000 lbs year for pressing from all of my trees and surplus from others in the village. I used to manage 2,000 lbs when I could take all I wanted from a small orchard in the next village, but the owners moved.

I've nearly run out of bottles (got around 800) as I pasteurised the juice from over 300 lbs of Blackberries(and still got some left from last year) , so I may be forced to put on yet another 6 galls of cider.