Five-in-one Apple
Red Delicious
Granny Smith
Gala
Fuji
Jonagold
2001: Didn't produce much. The apples cracked (as if underwatered?), and were very small. Taste was excellent, however, for the few small apples that were edible. As I recall, only the Granny Smith graft produced fruit.
2002: Had to spray for aphids frequently in the Spring. Blossoms were beautiful, two of the grafts are producing very heavily. Granny Smith is much poorer than last year. Gala apples began producing in early August, as did another variety (Jonagold?) that is sweet-tart with high flavor content. The graft nearest the fence (Fuji) is edible in late August, but not quite ripe. As of Sept 22 the Granny Smiths are still not ripe, the Fujis are edible but not ripe, and the Red Delicious were finished about 2 weeks ago.
2003: Since we don't much care for Granny Smith apples we grafted a Fuji sprig onto the Granny Smith trunk. The tree looks awful, but hopefully it will grow into a more pleasing form over the years. In early April it appears that our grafts have failed. 6/1/03: The smaller grafts (not the new ones) have done quite well this year, but we will not have much fruit from this tree in 2003. I'd like to replace this tree with another more shapely one, and graft our Fuji and Jonagold varieties onto the new one. 8/21/03: We picked one apple a few days ago because the birds were after it. It wasn't quite ripe, but it still tastes good. It is very large. 9/5/03: We picked two more apples about a week ago, and they were tasty, though sweet-and-sour. 9/16/03: Picked a (the only) Red Delicious apple last week, and it tasted good, but it was very small. 9/27/03: Picked the only 2 Fujis that grew this year. They are small, but we haven't eaten them yet. 10/3/04 The Fujis turned out to be as good as any apple that I have ever tasted.
2005: 2/27/05: The tree finally lost its last leaf about 3-4 weeks ago. A friend had to prune some of the branches very heavily. The Fuji graft is reasonably strong, and may produce fruit this year. 3/24/05: The tree has been blossoming for a week or two now, except for the Fujis. Red delicious apples should be plentiful. Jonagolds and Galas should do fine, too. 4/21/05: No Fuji blossoms this year. Red delicious, Jonagolds, and Galas will do best, though the Jonagolds won't be as plentiful as they were last year. 7/21/05: While the fruit crop isn't as good this year as last, the tree is growing wildly, which bodes well for coming years. The galas are nearly ripe, which is not surprising given that it is exactly a year to the day since we picked the first one last year. 7/31/05: We picked the first ripe Gala apple yesterday, and then two more today. 8/16/05: Picked the last 3 of about 12-15 Galas. There are still 20 red delicious apples on the tree, 2 Granny Smith, and some 5-10 Jonagolds. 8/30/05: Picked the last Jonagolds today, and left one or two Red Delicious.
2006: 2/26/06: The tree is very dormant, with no obvious budding. 4/13/06: Jonagold and Red Delicious have been in bloom for a week now. 4/29/06: All varieties are in bloom. The Jonagold and Red Delicious have the most blossoms. The Fujis are pretty scarce, however. 5/19/06: There are still fresh blossoms coming out, but we have pruned a number of fruit clusters from 5-6 fruits down to 3. This must be continued during the coming days. 7/19/06: The jonagolds are very large. We have fewer than 10 fujis, and perhaps no Granny Smiths. Galas are small so far. 8/13/06 I picked the first Gala a few days ago. They don't want to ripen as quickly as usual. Several Jonagolds have fallen or have been plucked due to worms. They're not quite ripe, and the skins are mottled with bruises. 9/8/06: Picked the last Galas a few days ago. All were good. Got about 20 fruits. Picked some Jonagolds, others fell. The taste is OK, but probably waited too long to pick some of them. 9/22/06: We've been getting Red Delicous as well. More apples than we can eat, but no time to bake a pie.
2007: 3/25/07: Blossoms were spotted about 2 weeks ago on the Gala, Red Delicious, and Jonagold varieties. Fuji and Granny Smith have yet to show. 5/13/07: We've had lots of aphids to deal with this year. The Granny Smith has one cluster of apples, while the Fuji has none. Gala, Jonagold, and Red Delicious should have satisfactory crops. Last weekend we thinned the apple clusters to avoid worm transfer and to let the remaining ones grow larger. 5/23/07: Some of the apples are nearly golf-ball size by now. The Galas are plentiful. The Granny Smiths are few, and the Fujis are none. 7/17/07: I noted yesterday that we could have ripe apples within the next few weeks. That would be in line with years past when they have ripened during the second half of July. 8/11/07: We began picking Galas two weeks ago. So far have picked perhaps 5-10 fruits. Taste is good, size is variable. We covered the Galas with small colored nets (one net per cluster), and this seems to discourage the birds. The first Red Delicious apples look nearly ready. Jonagolds might be getting ripe as well. 9/1/07: We picked the remainder of the Galas about a week ago, and they were plenty ripe, given that some of them were falling inside the mini-nets that we covered them with. The Red Delicious are ripening, and the Jonagolds can probably be picked any day now.
2008: 3/13/08: The new leaves have appeared, mostly at the end of the branches. 3/23/08: We have tons of blossoms coming on for all of the varieties. I put deposited some ladybugs on this tree a couple of days ago, but this morning I saw aphids all over the tree. I think we're going to have a battle on our hands. 3/29/08: The aphids haven't made much progress, so perhaps the ladybugs will rescue me here. Blossoms are coming on strong. We have several small branches with 7-11 clusters of blossoms, and it's clear that these branches won't even support 7-11 apples. 4/13/08: The aphids have been trying to cause trouble, and the ladybugs seem unable to keep them in check. Even so, I expect the best apple crop yet this year. I noticed a couple of small branches with 5-8 blossom clusters, and I doubt that these branches are capable of bearing more than 2-3 apples. 5/15/08: Two weekends ago we thinned the apples, generally leaving only 3 per cluster. Seems that nature should have been left alone for a couple weeks longer, as many apples that we left in place have dropped. Aphids not much of a problem anymore, what with the ladybug army in control of my entire back yard. 6/7/08: The tree continues to self-thin, so we should not have been quite so eager to thin them ourselves. But there are still clusters of 5-6 apples in a few locations that must be reduced. The Gala apple has several branches that cannot hold the number of apples that they currently have, so we will thin thes. The Jonagold main trunk is barely able to support the vast quantity of apples on its branches, so today we staked up the main trunk. 8/24/08: We tried a red delicious apple today, but it was probably a week or more early. Two days ago we found one Fuji apple that had fallen, and it was good. The jonagolds are ripening, and have a wonderful sweet-tart taste to them. Yesterday we harvested 16 lbs. of Gala apples, which have proven to be wonderful as snacks and desserts, especially after they are chilled in the refrigerator. 9/7/08: We still have a couple of Galas on the tree, lots of jonagolds, we've been picking red delicious for a few days, the Fujis have had a bit of pest damage, but are otherwise quite good.
2009: 3/26/09: New leaves began coming on about 10 days ago. Gave the tree a fertilizer spike (MiracleGro fruit & citrus). 4/23/09: There are no blossoms for the Red Delicious graft, a very few for the Granny Smith, a modest number of Fuji and Gala blossoms, and a huge number of blossoms for the Jonagold. We knew that last year was a banner year, but I didn't realize that the prospects would be so poor for this year. 5/9/09: I just observed a few late blossoms on the Gala and Granny Smith, but I sincerely doubt if anything will come of them. The Jonagold is spontaneously aborting a lot of apple clusters, likely because there are so many. 6/11/09: The worms made short work of a number of apples, so I plucked the apples. I still occasionally observe branches just dying for no apparent reason. These branches have been small, so far. I've also lost some apples to a sort of rot that is based near the stem. 8/8/09: We've lost many Jonagolds to worms, and a few Galas as well. Galas are ripe as of yesterday. Yesterday I covered many of the Jonagolds with mini-nets to prevent the birds from getting them. It turns out that one apple was half-eaten by birds before I even realized it.
2010: 6/13/10: We cut most of the Red Delicious branches and grafted more Fuji onto them. In April we figured that we were in for a bumper crop of apples this year, but a type of scale attacked the tree, and most of the blossoms and early apples have been killed. I've also seen a surprising amount of early pest damage (worms) this year. Right now I'm hoping for a modest number of Jonagolds, Fujis, and Galas. The Red Delicious will be more than anticipated, and the Granny Smith may have its largest crop yet. I guess that means apple pies.
2012: 3/13/12: The Jonagold has very little life in it. I wonder what's wrong. The Fuji looks ready to have another good crop. I sprayed the tree with Neem oil (Schultz 3-in-1 fungicide) on 3/10/12, hoping to foil the scale problem that we've had for the last few years. I sprayed again after most of the blossoms were off (I don't recall the date). Scale is not nearly the problem that it was last year, though it still did some damage. Lots of ladybugs in the tree, both the "imported" and natural varieties.