Nov 21, 2019
The columnar apple tree has lost all its leaves except for the festive cluster at the very top. That’s adorable.
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The columnar apple tree has lost all its leaves except for the festive cluster at the very top. That’s adorable.
The apples aren’t quite the size where I put their maggot socks on them but I can’t decide if it would be better to do it early, or wait until I’m home in two weeks. I don’t want my dad to do this chore, if someone is going to accidentally yank fruit off the tree, I’d rather it be me.
Some sort of last minute decision will be made, or not.
I have started July without dropping any apples during June.
I decided it was time to sock the apple tree. This is a non-chemical way of preventing apple tree maggots. They bore into the fruit and ruin it. It’s like ped socks for food.
The fruit is a good size to do it right now, not too small and it seems strongly attached to the stems, and hopefully I’m ahead of infestation. I’ve had several bad years in a row with this columnar apple where it dropped all its fruit during the peak of summer heat, and after the new fence was built, I did a huge pruning, where I took off a whole second trunk it had grown. I think that helped. The remaining trunk shot up enough in height I’m going to top it next winter when it’s dormant so that I can reach everything from a small step stool.
I cleared out any spots with lots of dead leaves or remains of apple blossoms still clinging, as they just harbor bugs over the summer. And it helps to find all the fruit. I socked all the fruit I could find, making four passes around the tree before I stopped finding more apples. Then I counted. A couple times. I can’t quite tell if it’s 17 or 18.
But that’s not actually that important. Yes, it’s probably the most I’ve had on the tree in years. What I’m more focused on is how many apples can I actually get to ripeness? Because that’s been zero for like three or four years now. Clearly the soaker hose is helping the fruit get started. With the climate-change-boosted warmth, I’m going to have to keep a close eye on the tree. I could have fruit as early as August this year, if I can manage to keep the tree from heat stress. And heat stress is about to arrive for at least a week.
The apple tree is blooming. I am going to make, yet again, a more focused effort to get it to hold fruit better this year.
My columnar Apple tree has flowered well but not kept fruit well at all over the last couple seasons. That combined with the new fence made me decide to prune off one of the two trunks. The tree won’t have as much of itself to support, and there will be more fence clearance. The new retaining wall at the base of the fence should help vastly with watering, literally keeping any water I put in that side bed in our yard.