Links

[vilakins]

I've been posting mostly art lately. It's time for some links.

Virtual tour of a steampunk house - very cool indeed.

Eleven only wore it for a short time but you can buy a fez from Marrakesh at ScifiCollector. :-)

And remember that dark apple I found in a bag of Royal Galas? Well, it was indeed a different type: crisper and sharper. I kept the pips and may have a go at growing them.

Comments

[lim]

The pips you grow from an apple don't grow you a new apple tree like that one. The chance of it being edible and like its pip-daddy are really really small - like, something like 3%? I don't remember exactly. Apples are the original clones!

[vilakins]

Really? I'll have to do some research before spending years growing Royal Galas which aren't even my favourites. :-P I thought that was how new varieties happened: a sport appears and is used to grow more. So they have to use the tree stock instead?

[lim]

Every variety we eat is from a tree grafted from a tree grafted... from the original tree that made the apple that was the original Cox's Orange Pippin or Peasgood Nonesuch etc.

Oh look, wikipedia knows all: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/apple#apple_breeding>

[vilakins]

Thanks! So planting it would only result in different apples. Oh well. I hope the grower noticed the apple(s); I'd buy them.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

I googled 'dark red gala apple' and came up with this-- that *might* be a Galaxy Gala!

http://www.ehow.com/list_6662894_gala-apple-types.html

Galaxy Gala
As a naturally mutated version of the Tenroy apple, the Galaxy Gala apple is a bold addition to the Gala family. With a distinctive purplish-red streaking pattern, the Galaxy Gala is much darker and predominant than the brighter Royal Gala, for example.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It could be, except that it was the same spherical shape as the others.

[samantha-vimes.livejournal.com]

My parents like a variety called Arkansas Black. I've no idea if it's possible to find them where you are, but I wonder if that could be the type.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Some of the images look dark enough, but mine had faint stripes, like the Galas. It tasted different though, or it happened to be a younger apple.

[samantha-vimes.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I wonder what happens if a bee goes from one variety tree to another-- can a hybrid fruit be spontaneously created? That would explain it being bagged with the galas.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I have no idea! Some apple trees are grafted onto other stock though so that might be it.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

I think a great many apple varieties occur as the result of spontaneous mutation, and the grower noticing an appealing oddity in the orchard, so you could have something entirely new.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Maybe! In about six years or so I might be able to sell it off, but first I'd have to grow some. :-P

[ultrapsychobrat.livejournal.com]

I hope they grow for you.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I'll have to ask Greg's sister, who's a horticulturalist, how to grow from pips, and also if she recognises the type.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Nice links, thanks but no time to stay there...