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  • From: Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [NAFEX] first fruits (apples)
  • Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:28:00 -0400

So the apple scions I grafted in 1999 to a random crab finally fruited,
perhaps as a result of some nearby trees having been removed. (Although
the crab fruited reliable every year before and since.) I got set from
three types of apples, and bagged between 50 and 100 this spring.

As the season progressed, a bunch fell in June. Then critters started
eating the fruit. The first time I noticed the problem I found a plastic
bag cut in a thousand places with little teeth marks. After that, I mostly
found empty bags on the ground. (Critters are clever, I guess.) They ate
all the red apples a month or so ago. I got half of the last one, which
was okay, in an unripe-apple sort of way. More recently they started on
the yellow Ashmead's Kernals. Last night I removed an empty bag and a bag
with a half-eaten apple from the tree. I washed the half-apple, and
carefully removed all the flesh that touched the tooth marks, then I ate
the rest myself.

Not fully ripe, but a pretty decent apple, nonetheless.

I picked the 4 remaining fruits last night, on the theory that slightly
unripe fruit is better than fatter critters.

For whatever reason, the Jonathon in the front yard still carries perhaps
50 nice-looking bagged fruits. I think I'll let them ripen a bit more
before picking. Last year I got three fruits from it, one very small and
the others tiny.

Overall, disappointing in a way, but also sort of exciting.
___
Ginda
eastern Mass., zone 6




  • [NAFEX] first fruits (apples), Ginda Fisher, 09/17/2008

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