Esopus Spitzenberg Apple Bareroot

Why We Grow It: The flavour of this particular variety is complex with high acid content, considered by many to be a high quality fresh-eating apple. This is helped by the attractive medium sized fruit which sports bright red skin. This variety keeps, with good flavour, until March. Despite being susceptible to just about every common apple disease, we still believe this apple is worth the extra effort and hasn't had much issue growing here with no extra attention on our part.

Recommended Use: Fresh eating, cooking, cider

Fruit Size: Medium

Storage: Keeps until March when stored in cool, humid conditions, flavour improves after a few weeks in storage

Harvest: October - Mid

Cider or Perry Class (if applicable):

Sharp

Class: Sharp
Sugar: High
Acidity: High, >4.5 g/L
Tannins: Low to medium, <2 g/L
Recommendations: Can be used to make single-variety ciders

Canadian Hardiness Zone: 5

Soil Preferance: Sandy loam, loam, clay loam. Prefers average to moist conditions, avoid planting anywhere that floods for more than two weeks in the spring. Generally quite adaptable to different soil conditions.

Flowering Time: Middle

Bloom Colour: White

Pollination Requirements: Requires a pollinator of a different apple variety that blooms around the same time

Sun/Shade Requirements: Full sun (approx. 8-10 hours of sun daily)

General Growth Habit: Spur-bearing, moderately vigorous but low precocity, tendency to have heavy crops every other year. Susceptible to scab, canker, cedar rust, fireblight and mildew, but seems quite content in our test orchard and produces quite well despite these recorded susceptibilities.

Overall Grower Ease Rating: Low

This rating is a combination of our experience growing in our test orchards and current available information on the cultivar.

Esopus Spitzenberg was discovered near Esopus, New York in the early 1700s. Its main claim to fame is its supposed designation as Thomas Jefferson's favourite apple, a claim supported by the numerous Esopus Spitzenberg trees he had planted at his plantation Monticello. This apple was very popular in the US in the 1800s, considered one of the best for fresh eating, valuable for cooking, and a nice addition to cider blends.

Our grafted fruit trees are graded into two categories, and the size includes the rootstock:

50-80cm grade: Smaller trees that may have some minor branching, this grade is like a "b-grade" size tree according to industry standards. This size may include trees that are over 1m but have some scarring or mild crookedness.
1m+ grade: Trees that are over 1m tall, some may have no branches and others may have light feathering or a few established branches

Please keep in mind, bareroot trees appear small if you are unfamiliar with them. Size can vary year to year due to weather conditions and every single variety has a unique amount of vigour (some varieties naturally are smaller and some bigger, much like humans -and when you propagate hundreds of varieties, there certainly is variation). While we remain competitive in our plant size, it's also worth noting we don't use synthetic chemicals to push vegetative growth. Therefore you may find some conventional nursery stock larger in comparison.

Why plant small? It's best to transplant a tree when it's young so it can establish its roots before it has a lot of vegetative growth. This is much less stressful on it and after a few years bareroot trees tend to catch up and even surpass larger potted trees planted at the same time.

Orders that are cancelled last minute due to size (being "too small"), will still incur the applicable cancellation fees if the trees are true to our grading standards as per the agreement of sale when the order was placed.

Shipping: Every year we ship thousands of plants across Canada. We carefully bag roots in damp sawdust, then box them, and send them out via courier. CLICK HERE to see our shipping policy.

Pick-up: We also have thousands of trees picked up from our nursery each year. The pick-up options is free, though you must wait until you have been emailed a confirmation that your order is ready to pick up, which will have further information such as hours, locations, etc.

When Will My Order Be Ready?

Bareroot apple and pear trees are available for both fall and spring planting! If you also order plants that are only available for spring, we will default to having your entire order ready for spring.

Fall: Fall orders are generally ready to be picked up or shipped out around mid-November. We only accept a small number of fall orders each year so if there is no fall option at checkout, your order will be available in the spring.

Spring: Spring orders are generally ready to be picked up or shipped out anywhere from late March to late May! We will be in touch in the spring once your order is ready to go. Orders placed in the spring might not be ready for 1-2 weeks as this is a very busy time of year for us.

$58.50