Early Victoria Apple Trees

Early Victoria Apple Trees

The Early Victoria apple tree (also known as Emneth Early) produces an early season cooking apple.

Read our guide to buying the right apple tree, browse our range of apple trees or see the full variety of fruit trees.

Characteristics of Early Victoria Trees:

• Use: Cooking. Bakes to a fluffy texture with a mildly sweet flavour.
• Spur Bearer: suitable for cordons & espaliers, trained on wires.
• Tree's growth habit: Average vigour. Compact form.
• Harvest: During August
• Store & ripen in a cool, dry place: Until beginning of October

General description of Early Victoria:

These are quite small fruit, but they make up for it with heavy crops. They are also one of the first cooking apples to crop each year. After baking, they have a loose, soft texture, similar to a Bramley, with a milder flavour that is still tart and sweet at the same time. We think that they are best eaten with raisins or sultanas and butter in the centre, straight from the oven. They are also delicious in any meat or vegetable main course, usually as a puree or sliced if the dish is being grilled.
These apples are radiant light green during growth, usually turning a rustic pale yellow when ripe.
This an all round reliable tree with lovely blossom. It generally crops well, but it can develop a bit of a biennial habit.

Rootstocks:
All of our Early Victoria trees are grown on MM106 rootstocks, except for the cordons, which are grown on M9 rootstocks.

Pollination Partners for Early Victoria:
Your trees are partially self fertile and their flowers must be pollinated to make good crops.
Early Victoria is in pollination Group C.
This means that they will cross-pollinate with other apple trees in pollination Groups B, C and D.

See our Guide to Apple Tree Pollination for a full list of partners & more tips about pollination.

Early Victoria Disease notes:
Disease resistance: Scab, Canker.

History & Parentage:
Mr Lynn of Emneth, Cambridgeshire, crossed Lord Grosvenor and Keswick Codlin in the late 1890's, so the early crops would have been some of the 20th century's first new fruit. Codlins are quite early season cookers and Lord Grosvenor apples are later cropping, very sharp and are pale yellow like the Early Victoria.

How Apple Trees are Measured & Delivered:
Our fruit trees are delivered in up to 3 shapes and you can also buy selected apple trees as ready made cordons.
Maiden: This unbranched tree is the smallest starting size. You can train maidens into espaliers and cordons.
Cordon: Early Victoria trees are spur-bearers, so they can be made into cordons and espaliers.
Bush: This is a style of freestanding tree with a short trunk of about 60cm. It will grow to about 3 metres tall.
Half-Standard: This is a freestanding style that will grow into a full sized, "normal" apple tree, about 4 metres tall.

Notes on planting Early Victoria trees:
All fruit trees like a rich soil with decent drainage, protection from the wind and plenty of sun. Apple trees like clay soil, as long as it is not prone to bad waterlogging.
This tree is suitable for organic growing in the more humid West and South of Britain, where scab and canker are more common.

Prepare your site before planting:
Improving the soil in advance of planting your apple trees will help them establish quickly and be productive for years to come. After you have destroyed all the weeds and grass, you can dig the soil over. Remove any stones and rubbish and mix in well rotted compost or manure down to the depth of about 2 spades.
You can do this on planting day, but when you do it weeks or months in advance, you will give the soil time to settle again.

Spacing Early Victoria apple trees:
Freestanding bushes: 12-18 feet (4-6 metres) between trees and rows.
Freestanding half-standards: 18-30 feet (6-10 metres) between trees and rows.
In general, allow 1 more metre between rows than there is between each tree in the row.
Wire-trained cordons can be planted in rows 60-100cms apart.
Espaliers need to be spaced at 10-18 feet (3-6 metres) apart.

Watch our video on how to plant a fruit tree for full instructions on planting a bush or half-standard sized tree.
If you are growing a maiden sized apple tree into a freestanding tree, a bamboo cane is enough support.
If you are growing a cordon or espalier, you will need to install training wires to support them.
Remember to water establishing apple trees during dry weather for at least a year after planting.

Apple Tree Planting Accessories:
For bush and half standard apple trees, our tree planting pack includes a wooden stake & rubber tie to support the tree and a biodegradable mulch mat with pegs, which protects the soil at the base of your tree from drying out and stops weeds from sprouting.
We recommend using mycorrhizal "friendly fungi" on the roots of all new trees, especially if your soil is poorly fertile.

After you plant an apple tree, the most important thing to do is water it in dry weather and weed around it. Both of these will be necessary for at least a year after planting. We recommend using a mulch mat as well.

The best tip for helping your tree to establish and quickly become mature and productive is to remove all the fruit that it produces in the first year after planting, as soon as the flowers fade. This will give the tree a chance to develop its roots, which are the foundation of the tree's strength, and sturdy branches that can bear the weight of a heavy crop without snapping.

Biennial habit: This tree naturally has a tendency to crop very well in some years, then give a poor harvest the following year. When your trees have established and begun their cropping life, it is important to notice if there is a large crop on the way and thin it out in late June or early July. This is best for the tree and will help it to give a more consistent crop from year to year.

All fruit trees will need formative pruning during their first years. Although this is not complicated, it is important to research and understand the process so that you can apply it to your particular tree and situation.

Harvesting Early Victoria apples:
Your trees should crop during August. Early Victoria apples will store in a cool, frost-free place for up to 2 months.
Read more about picking and storing apples here.

Hygiene & Diseases:
Dead, damaged or diseased wood can be pruned off as soon as it appears.
Disinfect your pruning tools between every cut if there is any sign of disease.
Burn or dispose of any diseased material, do not compost it.