lidl apple trees

gary29428

I planted several from lidl about 5yrs ago, trees are about 7 or 8 feet tall now. I don't remember what varieties I bought but two of the trees are absolutely dripping with apples as they were last year. Problem is the apples were pure sour and horrible to eat last year, initial tastes this year is the same story....is it the variety I bought but God knows who would sell such brutally tasting apple trees or something I am doing.

Thanks

looksee

I have said before, if you are going to plant trees, shrubs, perennials in your garden, you are much better off to pay a little bit more and get a good quality named variety. Lidl's are healthy enough plants, but they are not 'well bred', usually they are pretty much common varieties with just average flowers, fruit etc. No it is not something you are doing, but you are wasting your time continuing with the ones you have.

tv3tg4

Can you get Apple trees that grow to medium hieghts?

Can you get Apple trees that don't require spraying?

magicbastarder

to echo what looksee said - if you are buying a tree you expect to get 5/10/25 years from, it's not a lot of money to spend €15 more than you'd pay in lidl - where the tree is treated no better than a can of beans before you buy it - for a tree which you know is healthier and more likely to match the label.
to be fair to lidl/aldi, i've heard anecdotally that the quality of their stock has improved, but that doesn't mean much for the OP necessarily.
unless it's the rootstock you wanted, i'd give up on a tree that's only 8 foot tall after 5 years, if the fruit is poor. they've been known to stock varieties which don't do well in ireland - can you remember what the tree was sold as?

johnb25

gary29428 wrote: »

I planted several from lidl about 5yrs ago, trees are about 7 or 8 feet tall now. I don't remember what varieties I bought but two of the trees are absolutely dripping with apples as they were last year. Problem is the apples were pure sour and horrible to eat last year, initial tastes this year is the same story....is it the variety I bought but God knows who would sell such brutally tasting apple trees or something I am doing.

Thanks

Any chance you are picking them too soon? I have a Lidl apple tree that sounds like that. Last year I left the apples longer and they were better, and they improved for a few weeks after picking. Still a bit tart, but not as sour or dense as previous years.

blackbox

Any chance they are a cooking apple variety?


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jaffa20

You could try budding a new variety.

iainBB

ALDI apples trees are amazing, I have about 20 of them and the are over flowing with fruit this year,
Its the variety you are paying for in other shops and there overheads not better apples.

Pay 25 more for the same variety does not make it better, it perhaps may be and 2 3 year old tree that will fruit quicker , but not better, people fall for that all the time in our world.

The are the sweetest of them all :pac:, I would say that you have picked a cooking apple variety , see a lot of people just buy APPLE TREE rather then looking for a variety the would like to eat.

The only thing is the apples in ALDI are of a few variety so you are very limited in choice and the price is way down.

Solution:
After a few year you can graft your fav apple onto your ALDI tree. just go down to your nearest orchard with a snips and take a few cuttings. ( of course only take cutting from non copy protected varieties because that would be crazy, they will hunt you down and do nothing).

VincePP

gary29428 wrote: »

I planted several from lidl about 5yrs ago, trees are about 7 or 8 feet tall now. I don't remember what varieties I bought but two of the trees are absolutely dripping with apples as they were last year. Problem is the apples were pure sour and horrible to eat last year, initial tastes this year is the same story....is it the variety I bought but God knows who would sell such brutally tasting apple trees or something I am doing.

Thanks

Its currently end of July - it will probably be early September before garden apples are ready for eating. The best "test" is to twist the apple - if if come off easily, its good for picking. But at the moment, they'd be unripe and as sour as hell.

If you have the time this weekend - get some potash or fruit fertiliser and add it and also prune back some of the young growth from this year. - In winter you would prune back the older growth.

Sgt Pepper 64

VincePP wrote: »

Its currently end of July - it will probably be early September before garden apples are ready for eating. The best "test" is to twist the apple - if if come off easily, its good for picking. But at the moment, they'd be unripe and as sour as hell.

If you have the time this weekend - get some potash or fruit fertiliser and add it and also prune back some of the young growth from this year. - In winter you would prune back the older growth.

exactly, far too early to be picking apples, they must be tiny!

smacl

tv3tg4 wrote: »

Can you get Apple trees that grow to medium hieghts?

Depends on the root stock. Fruit trees you buy are often made up from different trees for the root and above ground parts, where the root stock determines how big the tree will grow, and the top part determines the type of fruit. If you go to a garden centre and ask for a tree on dwarf stock it will not grow too high.

smacl

iainBB wrote: »

After a few year you can graft your fav apple onto your ALDI tree. just go down to your nearest orchard with a snips and take a few cuttings. ( of course only take cutting from non copy protected varieties because that would be crazy, they will hunt you down and do nothing).

What can be fun is grafting different fruiting branches onto the same tree, where you can get a tree which gives you more than one type of apple.

gary29428

Going on last year's experience I left them until they were dropping off and they were still sour, some of them were huge.... I just bought them on a wim and stuck them in a corner of the garden. Suppose they could be cooking apples, what ye say makes sense about the quality of the trees but I'm just surprised how bitter and sour they are...even for cooking apples. One of the trees has nearly 100 apples on it....

dathi

gary29428 wrote: »

Going on last year's experience I left them until they were dropping off and they were still sour, some of them were huge.... I just bought them on a wim and stuck them in a corner of the garden. Suppose they could be cooking apples, what ye say makes sense about the quality of the trees but I'm just surprised how bitter and sour they are...even for cooking apples. One of the trees has nearly 100 apples on it....

put up a photo of them and we will try to identify them

magicbastarder

iainBB wrote: »

ALDI apples trees are amazing, I have about 20 of them and the are over flowing with fruit this year,
Its the variety you are paying for in other shops and there overheads not better apples.

i can't remember if it was here or another forum i saw it on, but i have seen people complaining that the fruit on the trees they bought from either aldi or lidl (can't remember which) in the early years of them stocking them, did not match what it said on the label. could be the graft failed maybe, but most people wouldn't dig up a tree six months after they bought it and try to return it.
another issue with the varieties they stock (or certainly used to stock) is that they'd sometime stock well known varieties, but not ones that do that well in ireland, e.g. granny smiths.

VincePP

magicbastarder wrote: »

i can't remember if it was here or another forum i saw it on, but i have seen people complaining that the fruit on the trees they bought from either aldi or lidl (can't remember which) in the early years of them stocking them, did not match what it said on the label. could be the graft failed maybe, but most people wouldn't dig up a tree six months after they bought it and try to return it.
another issue with the varieties they stock (or certainly used to stock) is that they'd sometime stock well known varieties, but not ones that do that well in ireland, e.g. granny smiths.

Remember you will always have people making things up about any store that upsets the over priced competition.

I've several apple trees, blackcurrant, strawberry and raspberry trees/plants - all from aldi and all thriving and all 7-10 years old now. And I'm a very casual garden person - more to do with childhood orchard robbing than anything else.

All trees are the varieties stated and all are suitable for Irish growth.

gary29428

Yeah, I have strawberries and raspberries as well from Lidl and they are brilliant, will take a few photos and stick them....just curious to know what varieties folk think I have...thanks.

smacl

gary29428 wrote: »

Going on last year's experience I left them until they were dropping off and they were still sour, some of them were huge.... I just bought them on a wim and stuck them in a corner of the garden. Suppose they could be cooking apples, what ye say makes sense about the quality of the trees but I'm just surprised how bitter and sour they are...even for cooking apples. One of the trees has nearly 100 apples on it....

Large and bitter sound very much like they could be Bramleys which are a great cooking apple, for pies, jams and cider. One of the simple things we do with them is take the core out, put some sugar and cinnamon in the gap, and roast them. Really tasty as a simple dessert.