i am new to this, i have some land at 300 metres above sea level about 40 minutes out of christchurch and i am interested in developing a small apple orchid there. i am interested in heritage apples with a view to making cider amongst other things(eating, drying etc etc). what i want to know is is 300 metres above sea level too high for apples. this could be a silly question but it seems hard for me to find any data on that particular one.
Depends a bit where in Canterbury you are - some places at 300m may be very frost prone whereas other areas frost free
My home is 108-128m in elevation and our apples are pretty good...and there are a couple of commercial apple operations near to us.
Another idea would be to have a bit of a scout around in your area to see who else is growing what in their gardens etc. If you can give us a better idea of where your block is there is probably someone on here with a good knowledge of what is possible and what has been done successfully.
Or get some seeds from the roadside apple trees - I know I've seen some at around that elevation, all round Canterbury. It'll take longer that way, but you'll get some true Canterbury apples! []
In regards to apples, they are believed to be natives of Kazakhstan, and that's a pretty cold place, so I would think you should be fine, depending on the late frost situation (if it's an issue in your area).
There is a company making cider from apples grown in the mountains around Otago and I imagine that's got to be at least as high/cold, if not more than hills around Canterbury.
We planted a couple of apple trees - Braeburn and Ballerina - a few years ago. We've had temperatures down to -10C since then, as well as some late frosts -2C) in November, and they are still alive and producing. I reckon apple trees must be frost hardy.
If you are making cider, you will want a mixture of sweet, dry, medium, cooking, etc apples (you probably know that already). And if you need a chief tester, as a cider-drinker for the last 25 years, I'd happily oblige.
apples will grow there just fine - if you select the appropriate varieties. Are you on Banks Peninsula or in the foothills?
Braeburn for instance will not ripen properly but old European varieties like Grafenstein or the cider apples will - those grow in Britain. Allenton Nurseries near Ashburton have a good web site and a 'Grandma's selection' of fruit trees. You may have to order them a year or two in advance.
I am living in a top apple growing area in Korea. It is at about 200m about sea level and it is really cold in the winter. Yesterday morning it was -13 and for the past 2 weeks it has barely been above 0 even in the middle of the day so apples certainly don't mind the cold.
I am sure there will be some varieties that will grow well for you in the area you are in. I had an apple tree in Christchurch which was a combination of cox's orange and braeburn (I think) and after a couple of years it was producing lots of lovley apples. It did much better than the other fruit trees I planted.
I think it is not so much how cold it gets in winter but rather how late frosts are - I thought you did not get good fruit set if there was a late frost during flowering - I don't know for sure but would be interested to learn more.
Come to think of it with the number of hail storms we have had in the last couple of weeks no apple tree is safe in Canterbury!
thanks for the replys. i am on depot road more towards waimakariri river than oxford. not in the hills, not on banks peninsular but google maps puts the 300 m contour across our land. last year, i planted a whole lot of fairly local wild apple seeds in a polystyrene box in a bit of potting mix with some straw on top and left them outside over the winter. i got almost 100% germination. these little trees are going into internal hedgerows. did the same with plum pips but only about 1/3 of these sprouted.
there is very little happening nearby in regards to fruit/nut trees, mainly pine tree shelterbelt trees. i think i might be a bit of a pioneer in my local area. there are some tree lucernes on a nearby dairy farm(should be banned in canterbury), these are going in to my hedgerows as well. we can get good solid frosts but so does most of the canterbury plains.
i have read that montys surprise would work for cider.
cowvet;297450 wrote: I think it is not so much how cold it gets in winter but rather how late frosts are ...
Yes, absolutely right CV, plus hail during flowering isn't good either.
There's a good article here
on the frost tolerance of apples and their flowers from Hortwatch in Hawkes Bay.
Interestingly, it notes that "Braeburn" was badly affected by an early frost because its flowers were more advanced in growth - open flowers are killed more often by frost.
If you have late frosts then you have to have a variety that flowers after the frosts, and also a pollinator to pollinate them that is flowering at the same time.
I'm under the impression that to make cider you should have one of the few true cider apple varieties. But other varieties make good wine. As with grapes, different varieties have different flavoured wine.
jennym;297462 wrote:
there is very little happening nearby in regards to fruit/nut trees, mainly pine tree shelterbelt trees.
There's a couple of apple orchards (both organic) that I'm aware of. One is up a road off Swannanoa Road (near Rangiora) but there's no sign, and the other is on South Eyre Road, around the 25km mark after the turn off from Tram Road (that does have a sign). As I found out from my fruit picking days in 1998, there are also lots of apple growers in the Darfield area. As for nut trees, there are quite a lot of hazelnuts and walnuts growing in the Waimakariri area.
To my knowledge, however, there's not a huge number of cider makers out there, although I've noticed that breweries like Macs and Monteiths have recently jumped on the apple cider bandwagon. I'm still keeping my eye out for a proper scrumpy (preferably minus the traditional dead rat).
I guess while your orchard is growing, you could experiment with apples bought from local orchards.
Seaside;297567 wrote:
To my knowledge, however, there's not a huge number of cider makers out there, although I've noticed that breweries like Macs and Monteiths have recently jumped on the apple cider bandwagon. I'm still keeping my eye out for a proper scrumpy (preferably minus the traditional dead rat).
we've been trying for ages to find decent english style cider here too. The macs one is getting close I thin, and we found a nice Irish one too, but we'd love to have proper cider! Seaside, maybe we should get together sometime and plan out our own cidery too!!
Three Piggies, Four Chooky Babes, Randy the Roo, Hubby and Me. []
Have you tried the ciders at the Dunsandel Store in Dunsandel? Apparently they do it the old-fashioned way with gear they imported from the UK. It's really nice cider, and from memory, they usually have 2-3 different kinds available (as well as using the cider in some of their yummy food!).
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