The biggest, most perfect apple on this tree left with a deer this morning. I figured if they’re ripe enough for the deer, they must be ripe enough for me. I estimate that one apple would have pushed the total weight well over 5lbs though.
Being a gift, I don’t know the exact age of this ‘Red Delicious’ tree. It would seem to be on dwarf rootstock though.
The guild entails three comfrey, some musk strawberries, chicories, parsnips, a blueberry (which gave about two handfuls of fruit earlier this year), japanese wineberry. I planted a peashrub (Caragana arborescens), and a false indigo (Amorpha fruticosa) in there earlier this year, and seeded vetch, borage, and field peas, pulling them up at flowering to feed the tree. The guild has never been dug but for transplants, never been fertilized but by plants growing in it. Only thick grass mulch established it.
Interestingly, the other apples, despite blooming just as much, gave little or no fruit, in direct relation to how developed the guilds are around them. This one is the most developed.
