As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I actually in another act of Faith for the day God moves some rich person to make the big donation as Paul says it is quite doable from the rich in taxation things, talked TL into splurging 40 dollars for a Minnesota apple, which I had ordered as a tot from Gurney's when it was still owned by South Dakotans.
It was a two for one sale or you buy one and the other for a penny.
My old man was tight with the money unless it was for himself. He would no more buy a rhubarb plant or an apple tree to plant, than a rich person would make a donation instead of robbing me. He would instead wait around for someone to give him things, which absolutely sucked so I am the one who used birthday money or work money to squander on plants that would die.
I reside in the brier patch and things just die here as their destiny in life, unless you are very careful with them in the blast furnace summers.
The lessons I purchased in plants taught me how to have things die and work out ways to have them live. The red apple I purchased was saddled by voles and died. I should have cut it off below the chewing, but I did not know and that was before the internet had information a click away. I wrapped it with plastic though and kept it going a year.
The yellow appled was a Honeygold, and I was thrilled as it was a dwarf and it produced apples even after half of it died from scab or rust, or whatever is that black chit that kills apple trees, especially Spitzenbergs.
The last crops was huge, and it broke the little tree off, so that was the end of the Honeygolds. To describe the Honeygold I had is easier to say that Evercrisp apples taste like eating deer sheet which has been feeding on pine needles all winter, compared to ambrosia.
Honeygold are a cross with Haralson, but they make Honeycrisp taste sour, and somehow make Yellow Delicious more crisp, more sweet, and mild up the Haralson, for an almost spicy hint of the most pretty and wonderful apple on the planet.
The plan in Faith is to grow this tree, and to obtain rootstock of the Geneva 11 or Malus line for semi dwarf and T bud the grafts on for my own use. Also when apple appear to save the seeds and sprout them to my content to see what God came up with.
None of this though is an expose' on how shitty Evercrisp guilds are in monopolies in extoring money from growers or the wonders of the Honeycrisp. The story is of what you need to look out for in jackass nurseries.
See I wanted semi dwarf and dude who runs the nursery tells me that his supplier sent KandyKane from Minnesota and it was just like Honeygold.
No it is NOT or there would not be two varieties. KK is a different yellow apple and a late introduction in the Minnesota sifting through old varieties as their pattent ran out on brittle Honeycrisp which the public is going to be raising hell about in a few more years as their brittle trees break off and all their sour Honeyscrisp in the stores make them cringe like Red Delicious once did.
So I sorted through and I found a standard Honeygold, which I think pissed the old dude off, but at 40 bucks I am not buying shit I do not want. Worse of this is the reason why I do not buy apple trees any more, as 40 bucks is out of my price range and why I sprout seeds.
So I am looking at this really nice tree, and I notice the plastic planter he has it planted is, is tall but it seems not so big. I am not paying much attention to it, as I save planters and intend to put it into a larger one as this is for when the uber rich donate the big donation for all they stole from God here.
Anyway, I let it dry a bit from the mud it was in the container to not disrupt the roots as it started to bud, and tonight with TL made the transfer, when I could get the tree out of the container.
I nigger measure it with my hand and I think it was about a 10 inch across container and when I got the tree out as the dirt fell out, I saw he had packed the roots into a twisted ball to stuff it all into this shitty container.
Yes a beautiful apple tree of deluxe quality and this horses ass is saving a few pennies by stuffing them into smaller containers, which is harmful to the tree.
See if you buy a tree like this with the roots all wrapped around, and are not aware of it, then you put in your dirt ball and wonder why in the hell the tree has no vigor. It is like stuffing a tall kid into a small bed. He just ain't going to grow proper. This is something you have going to have to watch in your tree purchases as this horse shit is bullshit in nurseries saving on dirt, space and containers are jamming root systems into too small of container, grinning at you selling them to you, and you wonder what the hell the problem is.
Somehow I helped kill one of TL's tropical plants so we had that large planter which the tree can grow into, even with it's now circled roots, but in that it has room to grow and room to be removed from the container.
See most big shots will cut these containers and burn them as they are rich. Most normal people will try to unpot them as I did, and the problem is when you have a tree with leaves on, it is going into June, is hot, and you try and get the tree out, and it is stuck in the container it was jammed into.
You end up ripping off roots, dislodging the all important hair roots and wonder why this nice tree suddenly droops and does not do a thing all summer as it tries to die.
So PAY ATTENTION to the containers and make an issue of it. I fully intend to tell people about this, and by word of mouth this is going to bite this horses ass right in the ass as he gets testy and tries to explain that people do not know what they are talking about, but the Truth is, this cheap bastard is hurting nice trees and everyone should make sure the trees they purchase are in containers that you wonder why in hell you are lifting on them.
It is it light, perhaps that purchase is not right.
That is the million dollar Lame Cherry lesson for today. I see my two odd Red Delicous apples which were sprouted last year made it through the winter and are about to amaze me as they are planted on Mom's.
I have three more Pink Lady's to put out too as I am not going to water them all year again in hoping for some big donation and having them die. Odd thing about Pink Lady is they seem to be very prone in the seeds in storage to sprout. This one had like 5 sprouted and 3 did not make it, but the two that did one is a forest giant and the other is getting along too. I will just see what they do with real winter as all I have invested in them is time.
That about wraps it all up.
.......and yes back in the day from the 1930's to the 1950's, Minnesota breeders did produce the best apple varieties on the planet. Honeycrisp is a step back and you will find in time that Evercrisp will have you cringing too as the apple breaks out of it's nursery stage of fancy apples to sell the product.
Is why I have my seed supply and am working on Honeygold.
Nuff Said
agtG
