God didn't make the little green apples

When The Boy was really quite small, he and I planted a pip from an apple he'd just eaten, on the offchance that it'd grow. Well it did, and was duly planted out in the garden. The years passed and it grew taller, but it never flowered - until this year.



The bees did their stuff, there wasn't a late frost to kill the baby fruit, and they gradually grew. Ned & I had always believed that apple trees that grow from pips don't produce 'real' fruit, but only sour crabapples, but Boy assured us (with all the weight of his arboricultual training) that we were talking a load of old toot, and that they'd be real apples.



And he was right. The fruit are still growing bigger and weighing down their branches, making them easy to pick when the time comes. Every time we thin out the crop to lighten the load on the branches we try them - they're certainly not too sour, but as yet lacking juice; hopefully that'll come in the next couple of weeks.



They're certainly pretty apples, despite some of them being a bit spotty (no sprays here!)



And getting to be a reasonable size too.



The size of the tree is a reminder of how long we've lived here - it came as a bit of a shock!