Oh I believe you, I just didn’t know crab apples could be so tiny. 
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there are approximately 70 species in the genus Malus : doumeri, toringoides, trilobata, floribunda, tschonoskii, sieboldii… are part of the small fruit apple trees that are often planted in park in Europe.
They also have the particularity of being often smaller and having very abundant blooms, and fruits that remain all winter suspended which is good for birds.
these trees are very good for pollination of fruit trees and have a large unexplored potential for dwarfing rootstock.
A landrace with Malus domestica, would surely also transfer interesting characteristics (resistance to diseases, new tastes, small size, more abundant blooms…)
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In our old house, we had a crabapple tree with tiny crabapples. They were really tart, but when made into jam, the jam had a neat flavor: a mix of apple and tangerine. The fruits were still good, just rather mushy, in spring.
One spring morning, I heard lots of noise outside, so I walked outside to look. The tree was FULL of a huge flock of birds, gobbling up all the leftover fruit and twittering joyously to each other.
I was glad the wildlife were so happy. 
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This is a fantastic feature! I was just listening to an Instagram reel the other day where a lady was discussing planting elderberry in between apple trees. The elderberry with its multitude of blooms helps ensure greater pollination for the apples due to an increase in pollinators in the area. I imagine if we interspersed these tiny crabs 
with the regular apples, it might help them as well. 
We already intend to interplant doing something what Mark Shepard (and many others I’m sure) have talked about like this:
And yes, the inclusion of these tiny apple trees would be mostly for the wildlife. I view this less as “our forest” and more as “the forest we steward”. 
They were all here first, after all.
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this is what apple growers in Europe do, a small ornamental apple tree at the end of each row to attract bees and help pollinate.
Sometimes if the rows are very long it puts some through the apple trees of production
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I wonder if anything with lots of flowers in between apple trees would increase pollination the same way? If so, I bet a lot of fruit bushes and many perennial vegetables that flower in spring would have a similar benefit.
(Laugh.) Of course, if you already have sufficient pollination, overpollination may be something to avoid! I recall in one of Stefan Sobkowiak’s videos (The Permaculture Orchard), he mentioned that he got rid of the honeybees he was keeping in his orchard because they were overpollinating all his trees, and he had to start thinning the fruit, which was extra work he didn’t want to have to go to. Seems like a good problem, but still a problem! 
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On the other hand I remember reading that Taraxacum in apple orchards tends to decrease the pollinators activity on the apple trees, since they prefer the Taraxacum. So it could also be a good strategy to plant early flowering plants to attract pollinators but have not many plants that bloom at the same time as the apple trees.
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Wild apple trees also have the advantage of attracting pollinators like some other flowering plants but especially to be very fertile. They emit a lot of pollen for a long time that pollinates well the apples of productions what would not do a flower of another kind. Indeed the other side of the coin is a lot of abundance and sometimes clear… but which will complain much fruit!
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Are you all saving your fruit seeds?
We didn’t get any Peaches or Plums this year. There was a late frost that came in during Spring while these trees were flowering. We are thinking that this might be the cause.
The Cherry trees in mom and dad home garden didn’t produce as much as they have in the past either. Of the fruits that did make it through…the birds got to. I did manage to find some seeds scattered all around the ground under the trees. I gathered what I could over the last couple of weeks and placed them into a bucket of rainwater to soak, and then separate sinkers from floaters.
We ended up buying cherries this year from the market stands, and I made sure to save a lot of those seeds as well. The growers selling their products mentioned that it was a tough year - many of them producing less than half of what they normally do.
My wife and I did manage to find some huge wild cherry trees in the forests we like to explore. While the cherries were tiny - they were super sweet and plentiful. Yes…we saved those seeds too hehe!
And a couple of weeks ago we came across another abandoned looking tree that was loaded with medium sized cherries, and they were delicious! Not as sweet or as large as the market cherries, but the flavor was better in my opinion. They had a nice balance of sweet to tart, and a hint of bitter, but not in an unpleasant way. The birds didn’t seem to bother them, and there was very little signs of any diseases or insect damage. These are the seeds that are the most exciting to me for spreading out for purpose of landracing.
This is what we were able to save this year:
These were all dried for a few days before packing into the plastic bags. I will likely stick them in the freezer for storage until ready to plant or share with anybody interested. (@Richard , @jens )
Ive been reading that growing cherry from seed is not easy.
Anybody have more experience with them?
I did notice that the more wild cherries we saved seed from tended to have a higher percentage of sinkers…
As far as the other fruits that I mentioned in earlier posts:
We are getting lots of Currants right now. The Gooseberries are looking great. The Blueberries are super plentiful. There are some Raspberries showing up, but not that much yet. The Grapes are showing positive signs of development. And i think we will have a good year for Apples.
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Very cool! I think you’re doing a wonderful job.
How easy is it to grow gooseberries from seed? There aren’t a lot of thornless varieties, so I’m thinking if I start some seeds from thornless (or nearly thornless, like Captivator) gooseberries, that may be a great idea.
I have a few currants I started from seed. They’re small right now. I can’t remember whether it was black currant or white currant seeds I planted in that space, so I guess I’ll find out when they’re ready to fruit. (Laugh.)
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It looks like we have two kinds here. One is green and is quite thorny, and the other is purple with almost no thorns ! A thornless landrace sounds very attractive. These purple ones are very tasty, and the bush looks to be much healthier than the green.
Ill be saving seeds from both. Ive never tried growing them from seed, and am not sure what the difficulty level is, or how well they cross, etc, but its looking like time to find out… Haha.
Time to read more into Gooseberries…
Photos from about 20 minutes ago:
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I could be totally wrong because my experience with gooseberries is limited, but it sounds like you may have Captivator (purple fruit, almost no thorns, very sweet and tasty) and Pixwell (green fruit, lots of thorns, not as sweet, but very nice flavor).
I grew Pixwell a decade or so ago, and I only got a few fruits before the bush croaked, but they were delicious. They had a generic berry flavor with an aftertaste of cloves. Very nice.
I’m growing Captivator now, and it hasn’t fruited yet for me, but I really hope it will next year! And, of course, when it does, I’ll be saving its seeds and planting them.
Awesome gooseberries. Looks a lot like my American cross between cassis/blackcurrant and gooseberries.
Forgot the name, but it’s an easy one to take cuttings of. Raising an army.
I’ve got a cross between raspberry and blackberry. It makes giant raspberries which behave like a blackberry in that they climb and don’t die back. They’re no fast growers. No idea yet how to propagate them.
I’ve got some goumi growing and found a variety with big fruits which for sure has viable seeds. Hopefully they cross with the smaller variety for some weirdness. The smaller bushier variety has small fruits but many.
Raspberry is taking over my garden in some parts. I use it to mulch with.
A Belgian man has send me Mirabel which suckers true a couple of years back. Fruits are here and suckers too!
Peach seeds are doing great this year. But plums not at all!
Apple and pear seeds didn’t pop up yet. It’s still quite cold and they’re in half shade in a passive nursery. Maybe they rotted away with all that rain.
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Another thought to play with, as well:
Gooseberries can cross with currants. Jostaberry is a cross between a black currant and a gooseberry. It’s thornless and has a flavor somewhere in between the two (from what I’ve read; I’ve never tried them). Maybe crossing your favorite gooseberries with your favorite currants, and then backcrossing with gooseberries, selecting for both thornlessness and flavor, may be a good way to breed some awesome thornless gooseberry varieties! 
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Aha! Josta. I’ll interplant then this autumn and safe seeds for serendipity.
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The apples on our friend’s trees are fruiting. They’re still little, but we’ll hopefully get a good crop to taste test and save seeds from.
None of their cherry trees give fruit. Anyone have ideas why?
I picked up a couple sour cherry and Cornelian cherry sprouts from friends in Missouri. If the grasshoppers don’t eat all of them at my trailer in Oklahoma, I’ll have those to add to the mix eventually.
I otherwise bought some cherries to eat recently and put those seeds in the freezer until I can bring them home to grow. I’d be happy to try growing the wild ones too, @eArthur. 
I received your apple seeds in the mail! 
Thank you!
Most of the berry plants I tried to start from seed didn’t bother sprouting. Very disappointing. I plan to gather a bunch of seed this fall to try again. If anyone has a source of strong seeds that readily sprout, I’m all ears.
The gooseberry @UnicornEmily sent me is still alive and growing well. I put it in the ground today. Figured I’d give my husband fewer pots to take care of while I’m gone. Got all my seedlings out of the snail rolls and in the ground too, so now the gardens just have to grow well and make food so we can eat veg, then save and share seeds.
Our fig bush is also doing well and putting out multiple sprouts this season. I hope it fruits so I can figure out what variety it is.
Seaberry babies are looking healthy. Might be able to get a crop from them next year. 
Black goji are existing but not thriving. Might need to ask where they were all planted because I’ve only found one so far…
One of the currant seeds might have sprouted. Waiting for that little plant to get big enough to identify better. 
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I have Pawpaw, Passionfruit, Jujubi, Tamarillo and other fruit trees. I also have Wineberries & Black Raspberries. I’ve been saving seeds from Grocery Store & Wild Foraging for 5 years, I’ve collected a HUGE collection. Pawpaw may be difficult to transfer to Europe as the seeds are HUGE!
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I’m excited that my Bisbee Spur Red Delicious apple is ripening some fruits this year! So is my 20th Century Asian pear. Assuming they’re as tasty as I expect them to be, I’ll eagerly anticipate the day I get fruit from the resulting seedlings.
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Yes, I am interested, save some for me.
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I might have some extra jujube seeds this autumn, it depends how much fruit there will be this year on the one I have. It flowered nicely so I’m hopefull there will be plenty fruits.
There’s also one guy in Croatia that grows pawpaw comercially, I’m thinking maybe asking this autumn for some seeds… or if that’s not possible than I can ask someone in the continental part of the country to buy some pawpaw fruit on the farmers market and save seeds from that
Anyway @eArthur you can just tag me here sometimes in september/october and we’ll se what I have then
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