Motorway apples.

The thread about losing a local woods, and people bunging apple cores into the bushes got me thinking.
I see absolutely tons of apple trees growing along the M4 around here, and many of them are pissing apples out.
Now Im a bit of an apple nerd, i grow em myself, so I was wondering does anyone have a seemingly randomly growing apple tree in their area which they pick fruit from? Because the fruit is that nice? Is anyone else sad enough to think of things like this?

Yes. No, I generally don’t bother to pick the fruit as, from experience, roadside apples are not very nice.
That’s because when you throw an apple out the window, it does not grow into that apple you threw out. Most commercial apples are hybrids and grown on root stock. That means the top half of the apple tree is a (say) coxs orange pippin, but the bottom and roots are something like ‘M26 Rootstock’. The rootstocks allow better growth, disease resistance etc compared to the original tree.
The seeds from the apple grow into the rootstock tree apple (or it could be a hybrid), either way, it is not the apple you ate.
Of course ‘pure breed’ apples (are there any now?) will produce the same variety.

I once went to a mate of a mates house in a little village in the Cotswolds and was given a couple of bottli of cider.
They had been made by a village collective that harvested apples that came from ramdom trees around the village land that no one owned.
They were gurt lush ciders and pretty high in alcohol content too .😁

Not a random apple tree but I do plunder apples from the neighbour across the road, best apples I have ever tasted (I did ask the neighbour before I get flamed on here) Trying to grow one myself from the seeds, unsuccessful so far

Trying to grow one myself from the seeds, unsuccessful so far

As Alanl said up there it’d be better to have a look into grafting a cutting from your neighbours tree onto a root stock. You should end up with the same apples that way 😉

In other urban fruit tree news: The River Don through Sheffield allegedly has Fig trees along its banks. Apparently this is due to the numerous steel works using, and thus warming the water of that stretch of river.

there’s one local road side tree that has really nice fruit (Braeburnish but not quite), apart from a few local cooker trees they are all horrible though the birds like them.

The apple if I recall is associated with the mother tree while the seeds are associated with the fertilised flower. So the seeds of an apple always give a slightly different fruit to the apple from which they came.
Hence why all commercial apples are from cuttings grafted to root stocks.

IIRC

Fig trees grow very succesfully in my part of the UK, I ‘ve grown some myself. Brown Turkey was the variety.
Well, I know all about fruit pips having such varied and ancient genetics that youre unlikely to get a palatable apple tree from one. However, in the car park in my works, there is an apple tree that produces the most gorgeous pure crimson apples which taste like honey on a hot day. Unfortunately my attempts to get propagating scions has been fruitless ( boom boom!) due to how high the branches are , and theyre behind an 8’ fence.
Just a thought, all the modern varieties of apple started as a pip once. Only the one tree of each variety mind, and subsequent trees were propagated from that variety.
The original Bramley apple is dead, but seeing as every subsequent Bramley was propagated from its tissue, its still alive in a million places across the planet at the same time. Like planting one of my fingers then having a million johnnymarones all over the globe.

Also, there is a steelworks in my locale which produces insane amounts of warm water. This has lead to the belief thatt the seas around it contain Tarpon, a game fish usually found in Florida. Do all steelworks have tbeir own urban myths?

However, in the car park in my works, there is an apple tree that produces the most gorgeous pure crimson apples which taste like honey on a hot day.

Knights of Columbus! That does sound like a tasty apple!

Didn’t the original Bramley tree die recently?

Ah here we go, it’s in someone’s back garden.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-36826038

2021 paywall times article says it’s still alive

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/battle-legacy-first-bramley-apple-tree-nottinghamshire-xrqj5km8h

Not apples but I know of a wild strawberry patch in my local woods that is a bit off the beaten track, in fact involves climbing over 2-3 fences to get to it, but the strawberries are tiny and really intensely flavoured. There are enough plants to easily gather 20-30 strawberries in a single picking but they are so small that is only a handful. Great refreshment break when you find them.

Loads up along the A1 but I’m not going to eat fruit that’s grown right next to a main road.

Anyone seen any motorway pears, apricots, plums, etc?
I have seen cherry trees with little cherry trees growing all around them, and they were in a services in Somerset I think. The presence of lickle baby trees proves tbey were fruiting.
I have also seen wild blueberry bushes as tall as me, but thats cheating a bit cos that was in Canada.

We have wild strawberries in the garden – they’re quite invasive actually, but it’s worth it for the berries which are lovely.

We’re also lucky enough to have a lovely cherry tree at the bottom of the road and an apple tree right next to it, so we get some lovely fruit from those. Coupled with the blackberries that are all around, the wild garlic everywhere and plums from the tree in our garden we can do pretty well!

On a site visit of places I used to work, of various questions about the previous woodland management I was shown a random lone apple tree in an oak wood on SW Dartmoor.

The tree appears to be of an age that correlates with my time there. I have been chucking my apple cores around the woods for years in the hope of not having to pack one for lunch. Potential success rate of one and I think I’m winning.

Bilberries all over the place in Scotland.

Proper blueberries

Yep, bilberries are gorgeous, called Winberries down here though. Perfect thirst killer on a hot summers day, saved my arse quite a few times in the past.
Edit: ooh hang on, just did a google check on bilberries, winberries look identical but seem to run smaller and are glossy not dewy. Anyway, winberries are great, little balls of supertart juice , very welcome when your mouths gone all cuckoospit .

My Nan used to make the best winberry tart. A real treat!

We’ve got wild strawberries in the garden, intense strawberry flavour but the birds are on them like lighting…

The apple story is amazing. It’s said that the fruit developed into the eating apples that we have today from the east along the Silk Road over generations from travellers using that route and picking, eating and chucking apples along their journey – like an old world M4 corridor apple tree continuum! Perhaps there’s a mini genetic development of apples from London to Carmarthen?

You sometimes find old fruit trees and other oddities in the woods where old cottages used to be, often associated with some old walls or earth banks and perhaps some old bits of timber or tin sheet where an old woodmans cottage used to be. Often there are odd plants from the kitchen garden or orchard that have outlived the dwelling.

I recall some guy visiting us at work once trying to propagate a cutting from a really old landmark tree. To get good material for the cutting he needed the tips of the growing shoots offf the uppermost branches. This was an ancient oak, the tool he used for getting the growing tips from the top of the tree without climbing the tree was a 12 bore shotgun! He just shot the tips off!

Driving through France and stopping at motorway rest stops particularly in Normandy and Brittany if I recall you often find big grassy areas with picnic benches and not much else other than a frites van perhaps and a toilet block but importantly shade provided by groves of fruit trees. I’ve picked apples, plums, greengages, cherries all sorts from such places in the past.