Right this moment in the mail is a present being sent. An heirloom 'horse apple.' I decided to look this up and it turned out it maybe, "Osage Orange" or a relative there of. I read about the uses of it, & it is certainly a permaculture tree by many means. Any one out there have experience with it?
I don't know a horse apple, but I do know the Osage Orange. It is a very dense hard wood that makes excellent wooden tools, and is prized by bow makers for it's strength. It needs to be worked while it is green otherwise when it dries it can cause saws to send sparks from their blades. In the southeast usa it is known as Bodark tree, which is a southern slurring of the French “bois d’arc,” meaning “wood of the bow". The wood is not prone to rot so it makes great fence post, or even foundation piers for outbuildings. The fruit is supposed to repel insects.
Well, I am both happy and sad!!! I asked the person who is sending me the "Horse Apple" and I asked bluntly. Is it an apple or is it an Osage Orange, and it turns out to be an actual heirloom apple named, "Horse Apple". The nursery responded to me with this quote, "No the name is Horse apple; every county had at least one Horse apple, it was the most commonly mentioned apple name in the south other than the Red June." I do believe I will get myself an Osage Orange as well, it seems to be quiet the elite permaculture tree.
The Osage Orange is a great tree and was used as living fencing. It has thorns on the young growth and the wood resists termites as well as rot. We have two at Purple Pear and hope to turn these into many to use as a fence, hedge, windrow, windbreak, small bird habitat. Not sure about the horse apple though. Is it a vatiety of little use but horses will eat it? surley it would be good for cider then?
It still is, so this could go one of 2 ways, the apples will either "be the shit!" or will "taste like shit!" Either way, it's biodiversity.
That would be road apples. Most of the stuff for horse apples is osage orange, but there could be an heirloom apple variety that I never herd of called a horse apple. Or it could just be an apple planted from seed that is too tart to eat out of hand, but not too tart for horses.
It is a heritage apple variety from North Carolina. It just arrived and I updated my blog about it. There is a link to the apple supplier in my short post, he has another Horse apple variety as well for sale.