What's Up With That Apple Tree?

My little apple tree which bore only 1 fruit in 2006, and has slowly been adding a fruit or two each year, is bearing a number of apples this year:


In fact, a few apples have already fallen, and I've enjoyed sampling them. But a few days ago, I noticed.... blossoms?

In fact there are a number of blossoms, right alongside the fruit which is nearly ripe:


This next photo shows apple blossoms (at bottom, a bit washed out by the camera's flash) with near-ripe apples, and a number of green raspberries overhead:

Yes, the golden raspberries are putting out another crop:

But that's nothing new, they seem to put out a summer & a fall crop each year, yielding a nice sweet surprise as late as October and November.

Anyhow, this is not about the raspberries.... or is it? I now remember that about a month or so ago, I decided to cut back some of the apple branches, since they were colliding with the raspberry patch along the fence, making it hard to walk through that area. Also, I figured it would be better to have shorter stronger branches rather than longer weaker ones. But looking closer tonight, I realize that it is each of the branches which I cut back, which put out the blossoms. So maybe some magical combination of a dip in temperature followed by more warm weather, and the cutting back of the branches, seemed to trigger the blossoms.

I hope this will not affect the tree's ability to respond to the REAL spring when it comes. I'll see if any fruit sets from these blossoms. I think it would be wise to remove any fruit before the winter.

I suppose this illustrates why my espalier apples are always very efficient at producing fruit (and each year I need to prune back the fruits very aggressively). Since the tree's upward growth is continually impaired, more energy is directed to bearing fruit:

The same with my espalier asian pear, which I didn't prune aggressively enough this year (and I also need to tie up the branch tips):

While I'm shamelessly showing off my fruit, here is my italian plum tree this year, which bore exactly 5 fruit last year. The fruits are very sweet, and freestone.


I don't know what causes the scars on most of the plums, could that be a disease? Does anyone recognize it?

The grapes have finally established on the side of the shed, and this is the first year we've had fruit. So I'll be able to find out what types of grapes I've been trying to grow these past few years (since I didn't pay enough attention at the time - they were a gift of cuttings):