That old apple tree, and me

It was 30 years ago when I planted that Granny Smith apple tree in the front yard.

I’ve been an apple lover since I was a child and used to climb that big old apple tree
in the back yard of my home in Rosland Heights , Long Island.

It was a green apple tree too, and I can remember getting sick on the apples when I ate too many of them before they were ripe.

I didn’t think an apple tree would grow in California, the weather being as hot as it gets, but someone told me the Granny Smith would survive the heat.

What they didn’t tell me was the fruit wouldn’t survive the apple worms. I had to find that out for myself. The Granny Smith grew in the front yard and was watered as part of the lawn. It was a beautiful tree with nice wide branches, the kind that kids loved to climb.

The first fruit on the young tree were like gems and I would try to spray for the bugs. As the tree grew larger, the spraying got harder and I tried an assortment of devices.

One year I bought a bag of lady bugs and scrattered them over the tree. They disappeared so fast I didn’t see a one on the tree by the next week. Then I had an idea I got from the Japanese where they wrapped plastic bags around each fruit. There was a lot of kidding about how my apple tree looked that year. I only tried it once and gave it up the next year.

About every other year the tree would have a bountiful crop, actually too many for its little limbs to carry. I would pick the bad ones and throw them away. The worms would get most of them anyway, and I would pick the ones off the ground as they fell.

I made wonderful cinamon apple sauce in the crock pot, using the pieces which weren’t damaged. Then the drought years came and the crops got smaller. There was rarely one apple left on the tree worth eating. I had the tree pruned back because by this time it had grown so large it covered the whole front yard.

Those were the years that my wife and I started sailing every fall. The fruit ripened at that time and I missed the apples for several years. Then came this last year with all the winter rains. The old Granny Smith put on more fruit than I had ever seen before. There were apples everywhere.

I think maybe even the apple worms got tired of having so much to eat because the other day, I went out and picked a perfect apple off the tree. It was untouched by human hand or apple worm.

I washed it in the kitchen sink and cut it with a sharp knife. It had a crisp smack that only a perfect apple would have. And I sat down and ate it. What a glorious taste!

That old Granny Smith apple tree.