Enthusiastic Gardener

One good way to distinguish enthusiastic gardeners from ordinary gardeners in my head is this: Enthusiastic gardeners grow rare varieties or what’s usually said ‘not suitable’ successfully. They basically trust their instinct and take challenges no matter how impossible it may seem. They don’t listen or refer to the general guides that’s commonly available when they find a plant they really want. They just get it and plant it, and make it grow successfully.

I’m hitting a question that tests my madness about gardening. I’m in the process of deciding whether I plant these seeds I’ve got in my hand or not. If I’m lucky, plants from these seeds would offer me food, but it’s been said that “don’t bother growing the plant from seed because it won’t be efficient”. Can you guess which plant I’m talking about? Here is the brief description.

“Tree up to 10m. Life span: medium to long. Deciduous, hardy, sometimes self-fertile. Fruits: up to 15cm, spherical, green to yellow or red. Vitamin value: vitamin C.”

It’s one of my favorite fruits, yes, it’s apple. I’m looking at apple seeds in my hand and thinking whether I sow them or (listen to the general guides and) don’t bother.

According to various sources and people around me, apple trees rarely make good yield when they are grown from seeds. Partly because most of the varieties cannot pollinate themselves. But there are people who say it’s ok to sow seeds. They say that if you choose different varieties and grow three or more trees together, you can get fruits.

Apples have thousands of varieties. I only know a handful kinds that are commercially available in Australia. What I miss is the crisp fresh apple that I used to eat when I was a kid. I grew up in Japan and my hometown is famous for juicy apples. I know that the variety that my hometown has is not available in Australia but store-bought apples cannot satisfy my taste. Supermarket apples seem getting tasteless every year. I cannot feel the taste of the sun, air and soil from those apples. I want to try if growing own apples make it difference. I want to eat fresh apples straight off the tree.

I kept seeds from apples I ate. I have four varieties:

• Red Delicious
• Granny Smith
• Pink Lady
• Sundowner

Red delicious is my favorite. I have more than three seeds for each varieties. Are they enough to grow fruits? I don’t know. I kept researching and found that apples do better if they cross-pollinate. Manual pollination is a big job, I want to avoid if I can. I prefer natural cross-pollination to occur. Based on the blooming timing of each variety, I think it’s possible with those four varieties. Red Delicious is mid-season apple, the others are late season apples. Granny Smith is apparently a good pollinator and it should bloom not long after Red Delicious (hopefully while Red Delicious is still blooming).

I’m still looking at those seeds and still thinking. Is this going to be waste of time? Waiting for minimum of two years for the trees to grow and if they don’t fruit? One side of me says “don’t bother” and the other side says “go ahead”. The latter also says that the fruit is not only positive about the apple trees. They make magnificent flower display in Spring and the timber has such a wonderful fragrance when burned, perfect for making smoked roast on our kettle BBQ.

I’m still thinking, and thinking. This will be my biggest question to answer for a while…