Feral Apples

Apples have started to fall from the wild trees that grow in the woods where I hike. In the last couple of weeks, maybe encouraged by the return of the rain, the abundant fruit has seemed to power through the last stages of ripening, growing more plump and taking on a beautiful red blush. Yesterday the dog and I shared our first feral apple of the season. It’s going to be a great harvest this year.

The same woods produce abundant black raspberries. It’s common to see people picking them, whether it’s just a handful for a quick snack or a container full to take home for later. Not so with the apples. Much more often, these lovely fruits simply fall to the ground, only to be run over by mountain bikers or kicked aside by hikers and joggers. Only the wasps seem to truly appreciate wild apples.

I think a lot of people are afraid of feral apples because they only barely resemble the fruit you buy at the grocery store. Cultivated apples have been engineered to be regular in size, larger, and to resist the scabs that naturally form as an apple grows. They stay white for longer. They are visually pleasing, assessed by the eye rather than the palate or the nose.

And yet, feral apples are very good. The apple I ate yesterday was small – about a third of the size of the average cultivated apple. It was dense with flavour, both sweet and tart. The flesh was also harder and crunchier than most store-bought apples. It was irregular in size, and bore some scabs from the trauma of growing. As I ate it, the pristine white flesh turned brown extremely quickly.

It could be that people are concerned that somehow feral apples will prove to be hard to digest, or that because they are wild crafted, they must contain numerous worms and insects. Yes, it’s best to avoid apples that have fallen to the ground. “Never eat a windfall apple,” advised the grandmother character in The Company of Wolves, and she was right (although you should stray from the path as often as possible). Once the tree is ready to release her fruit, all it takes is a little shake to make apples fall. Grab them when they hit the ground, and you’ll be just fine.

While I’m sure feral apples are more nutritionally dense than their domesticated counterparts, the most profound thing about them is their energetic effect on the body. After eating that one small apple yesterday, I was filled with a strong, uplifting energy that lasted for hours. It isn’t too surprising: an apple tree I spoke to last year told me that fruit trees have chosen to pour their energies into fruit as an expression of love for people and animals. Because wild fruit trees aren’t under the kind of duress that cultivated trees must endure, that voluntary energy of love remains with their fruit.

After enjoying that first apple, I put out an intention to gather more the next time I go to the woods. As I walked along the remainder of my route, numerous apple trees I hadn’t noticed before practically jumped out at me. I even found a densely laden pear tree, with enough fruit hanging on it to feed a family for the entire winter.

The next time you’re in the woods, keep an eye out for a feral apple or pear tree. Give the tree a shake and enjoy a gift from the natural world.