Tolman Sweet Apple Bareroot

Why We Grow It: Tolman Sweet is a great all-purpose apple. The fruit are medium-sized with yellow skin, and have a distinctly sweet, dry flesh. They are nice for fresh eating but can also be used in baking, drying, and pickling. Their unusually low acid content helps to reduce acidity in both sweet and hard cider.

Recommended Use: Fresh eating, cooking, cider

Fruit Size: Medium-small

Storage: Keeps a few months when stored in cold storage.

Harvest: October - Late

Cider or Perry Class (if applicable):

Sweet

Class: Sweet
Sugar: High, SG 1.061
Acidity: Low, TA 1.4 g/L
Tannins: Low, 0.1 g/L
Juice Yield: Low, 90 mL/lb
Taste: Sweet
Recommendations: Good in blends where it adds sweetness and balances out more acidic varieties
*Information based on Michigan State University's "Great Lakes Cider Apple Collection"

Canadian Hardiness Zone: 3

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: Moderately vigorous and very hardy, precocious, spreading growth pattern, tends to bear fruit every other year, spur bearing. Susceptible to fireblight.

Overall Grower Ease Rating: Medium

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

Little is known about the origin of this heritage apple, but Tolman Sweet has been highly valued since its discovery. It is uncertain whether it came from Massachusetts or New York in the 18th or 19th century but it was first recorded in 1822. This hardy tree was used as a source of rootstock at one time.

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