Apples in Hoskote, Bangalore!

 

A baby bare root sapling planted

Look closely at my picture! Yes its a bare root apple tree sapling sent to me from Jammu and Kashmir by a friend from a Goan gardening group. Colonel P sent me over a dozen of them along with graft figs and we made a morning of it planting in my beautiful farm in Hoskote.

Every now and again we get the urge to plant a few more exotic fruit trees and our friends never fail to send us plants which no one else has. I just have to say I want this or that plant and some friend or the other will order it for me.

So look at that sapling, getting its first baby leaves, with the teak leaves helping to save all the moisture in the soil for it. Slowly over the weeks and now months the trees have found their footing and seem to be very happy in their new home.

                                                 Cutting off the root stock

Of course we have to be watchful and see that the sapling is safe from the heat and different conditions from its home state of Jammu and Kashmir. We also have to cut off any root stock that might come up below the graft. I was taught that by my Dad and I am grateful to put it to good use.

They have grown much taller than me 

Its just been 8 months and they seem to be happy in their new home. The Col instructs us to spread the branches and make the canopy more rounded. We try to understand what to do and hope with pruning te canopy grows more rounded. Pull off the leaves manually and let them feel a fake Autumn  like Kashmir he says, but I cant do that. Which is silly really!

                                                        Flowering in March

Today we have made a regular Sunday visit and imagine our joy to see some of the trees are flowering. The joy we feel is indescribable. How I wish my gardening loving parents were here to see them! Dad especially would have been overjoyed. Apples in Bangalore? he would say. No! No! Cant be!

But yes! Yes! with science anything can happen. Over time botanists have worked on these warm variety apples and these are some of the first growing down South.  Yes in our farm we will have excited botanists coming over the next few weeks from the IISC!

                                                      Arent they beautiful?

We still have a lot to learn. How to thin the fruit, on which branches? How many to take off and thin down? Its a new journey for us just working till now with chickoos and mangoes, avocados and Ramphals. The usual fruit down south. The Colonel has had no luck sadly in Goa. Its too hot and humid there I suppose. But hes our guide and mentor. A kind and generous young man who loves plants and we have found through a gardening group.

By the way our avocado trees are LOADED this year. I love them just like my Mum did!