Our Fiorina apple tree in the garden that I planted from a sapling 18 years ago and it is still there. The first apples arrived after three years and since then we have had apples every Autumn. This year is a special year: days of hot weather, some rain and in Spring a tree full of flowers that transformed into apples and now we have enough apples for stewing, tarts, or whatever. We had so many that now again I hear a bumping noise in the garden and realise that yet another apple decided to fall from the tree.
And then I have my second apple tree. These are gala apples, the ones that usually arrive in the shops from South Africa. When I was a working woman I always had a apple for my morning break. I also had a potted plant on my desk and added a couple of apple pips from my apple. After a while they began to grow. That got bigger and so I took them home and planted them in the garden. Five years later I had a fully grown apple tree, but no apples. I never expected an apple on my gala tree, as it was from a pip, and I thought you had to graft your branches on another tree to get fruit. This was not the case, and 4 years ago my gala apple tree bore its first fruit. OK, the worms got them, and the apples died before you could call them a real apple. In the meanwhile they have practiced and now I am getting a regular harvest of gala apples every year and they are edible, nice and sweet and juicy.
I do not stew them to keep. I might pop some in the microwave with sugar if I have too many.
My gardener told me that the Fiorina are an apple for storage and the Gala for eating as they arrive. I do not even eat apples so much.
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 
one of the best pictures!!
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Thankyou
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You were lucky with the Gala apple tree. Like you, I thought that it was impossible to get fruits without a graft !
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I was very surprised to see the first flowers on the tree, especially has gala are not natives of cold areas like Europe.
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Apple trees are only grafted to get genetically identical apples. Most are bred so extensively that they seedlings are likely to be slightly different from their parents. Seedlings can certainly make fruit. The problem is that one can not predict what the fruit will be like untill it actually develops.
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And now I know a little more. I was probably lucky with my gala apples on the tree, as they really look like the gala that I buy in the store.
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Some are very close to what they should be. Some are indistinguishable from their parents, even to the experts. One just never knows.
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The only way I eat apples is to cook them.
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I do t eat them very ofte, but prefer them cooked
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I got some apples to bake this week.
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Some fruits have both male and female trees. I was shocked to find out that papaya is one of those. Apparently the female trees produce, but the males are only there for pollination. Can that be true of apples?
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It is always good tongave two apple trees for pollination purposes, but the bees always find a way
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I didn’t realize you could grow a producing apple tree from a pip, either. How wonderful! Thanks for joining the challenge!
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I also did not think that was possible. You have to have patience, about 8-10 years, but it works.
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