Crab apples

Apple is one of the more common hedgerow plants. They grow so easily from pips, they can be spread by birds and on roadsides by motorists chucking apple cores out of their car windows. There are lots of apple trees growing in the hedgerows alongside the A34 in Hampshire, but it is a busy dual carriageway with no safety lane along the edge, so no one can stop and pick them.

Looked up Pink Pearl! It could be that one too!

I have been at somewhat of a loss since we moved here to know where all these different varieties of apples that grow around the estate, which was built in 1997, come from. I can’t think the builders would have incorporated them into the landscaping, so maybe they were part of an existing orchard. But it must have been a pretty big orchard. I’m not complaining - we get lots of free fruit in the autumn and they seem to be old varieties, which is nice.
That could be the one, Jud. I ate it and enjoyed it anyway! DH thought it looked a bit too adventurous for him. His loss!

This looks very like an apple variety we have in the garden. It is called Discovery. Pink flesh and tangy sweet. A glut of these this year too. Gorgeous eaten off the tree but they don't keep well.

The red fleshed apple looks like a variety called 'Pink Pearl'.

There are a few golden yellow crab apple varieties. 'Golden Hornet' is a popular one but there are others.

Lucky you, having them all available.

Sorry I meant red delicious not Jonathan.

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This is the yellow variety. They are small and appear to be going over at a rate of knots, while the red ones aren’t. I think I will collect some of the red ones and give the jelly a go. As an aside, while I was out I found a tree growing at the side of the road that has a very interesting full size apple on it. It looked totally red, like a Jonathan, but when I cut it in half, what do you know? Sweet with a tart edge (will I still be here tommorrow?). They are mostly all fallen now, but next year, watch this space!

Our crab apples are exactly like this. Overwhelmed this year with the fruit. They are very bitter to eat but make a lovely jelly. DH made a huge batch this year. Yum. The ground is still covered in them.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsQBlqqQAPI

Looks like a crab apple to me but you can also get red and yellow bullaces. We used to make a very palatable bullace gin!

I have a crab apple in my garden. The apples look like this and will be gathering them at half term so that I can make apple jelly with DGC.

I looked up images of crab apples on google. Crab apples come in a wide range of colours from green to all over red.

The crab apples I know are yellow and small. Those are probably a different variety.

Very clearly a crab apple. An ornamental crab apple is just a crab apple planted to be ornamental. It is a bit late but the yellow ones, if they are plum like, may be greengages.

Gather the crab apples up and make apple jelly. Stew the apple juice with blackberries to make bramble jelly or with a bunch of mint, sage or rosemary to make a herb jelly. You can probably use other herbs, but that is all that I use.

I always thought crab apples were greener, but maybe not.
They look delicious.

I’ll try and post some more photos tommorrow. The yellow ones are definitely not plums.

Ours has far fewer fruit than usual.

Are the yellow fruits apple like or plum like? It's a bit late for ornamental plums (Mirabelles) but ornamental quince is also small and yellow.

Can you put a picture up?

Fennel it crossed my mind to gather some and make crab apple jelly, as merlot says. There are so many of them I certainly won’t be doing the birds out of a meal this winter. There are also trees with similar small fruits but they are yellow; hence my question about ornamental varieties. I shall have to find a recipe.

It looks like crab apple Malus 'John Downie' which is perfect for jellies and jams.

There's a tree behind our house with that kind of fruit. It has been absolutely laden with them, very pretty. The recent winds have caused most of them to fall.
I asked our neighbour about them and he said crab apples. But they're inedible. About the size of a chestnut.
What were you thinking of doing with them Greyduster?