When Maggie and I went to get the freezer, we saw two little dwarf apple trees, ill kept, yet loaded with fruit! Most of the fruit looked wormy and all, but still, it was kind of neat to see a little tree trying so hard. Our 5 apple trees are semi-dwarf, and I imagine they will do much better than this little guy, as hopefully we will be taking better care of them. Still… it was cool to see how much fruit just this little neglected tree had on it.

This is a picture of a mature semi-dwarf apple… they can get to be about 10-12 feet tall if you let them. Ours are a little close, so I hope to keep them pruned back and managable, so that they will make a nice little orchard for us.

I read this….

You might be surprised at how much fruit a semi dwarf tree can produce. For example, we regularly get 20 quarts of cherries from our single tart cherry tree, and have canned as many as 24 quarts of peaches from one of our peach trees, even though it is still growing.

I’m hoping that with our 5 apple trees we’ll have eating apples, pie stock and canning apples as well as some left for a little cider pressing. I think we could easily have that, if each tree can do 20 quarts of fruit. 100 quarts of fruit will easily take care of a lot of our apple needs. Can’t wait… it will be so cool!