Looks and sounds delicious Bob!Take a look at the Frontenac variety just for the fun of it. It was developed by the University of Minnesota to be grown in zone 3. Does very well in our zone 4.
That 160 lbs. of apples was from ONE tree.... and the 66 lbs. of grapes was from just 2 vines on a 5' high x 10' long fence.... Bob
I prune every year, plus thin the apples.... Our fruit trees are 16 years old, and they are pruned every fall as high as I can reach, so that no apples grow above that.... They grow about 3-4 feet every summer, and that gets pruned off again in the fall.... On the sides I leave 1 or 2 buds that are facing outwards, so the tree is gradually getting wider.... The center of the trees is removed to form a cup shape, and I have access to the center for pruning and picking....Every late spring, after the fruit is set, I thin the immature apples (about dime size) to one per cluster, leaving the largest one (the flowers are in sets of 3 to 6, usually 5), and also remove any apples within 6" of each other.... I probably drop well over 1000 tiny apples on the ground.... The remaining apples get larger, and you don't have the tree dropping golf ball size apples all summer, and wasting all that energy.... The grape vines I cut back to 1 or 2 buds on each spur each fall as well..... The vines grow up to 10 feet every summer....Bob