The tree seems vigorous and mature enough to just thin to decent spacing. I would do it as soon as the apples have fattened out enough to know they are set- usually by 10 days after petal fall. I am going to thin my Goldrush trees today. Goldrush usually has a clear king in the center of the cluster once it is ready to thin and you can safely remove all other apples in the cluster if you protect the tree adequately- if you fear insect damage leave a couple apples per cluster. Remove all the apples from clusters where they are less than 4" from another one- this is what most assures a crop next year, IMO. Those empty spurs will produce fruit next year. Come back in 2 or 3 weeks and finish the job to one fruit every 6-8"- you will likely find more apples than there should be given how well you thought you thinned previously. The fruit elves are always sticking back fruit in the night. Not sure if they pick up discarded fruit from the ground or just use elf magic to make new ones appear out of thin air. Someone should do a study.

I have the following saved from a site called Evergreen Garden Works, which is a bonsai site, but it goes into some detail about the physics of soil, what goes on under the surface, the importance of pot size and of the type of soil we use - dense vs aerated. I hope it is ok to paste this here, as long as I have stated where it came from. Sight has provided drainage in her pot, and some people, like Sara, overpot successfully, but this is good info to be aware of. I also thought the info about shallow vs deeper pots was interesting, it is the opposite of what I originally thought. A Pot Isn't Like the Earth The major difference between a pot and the earth is that a pot has impermeable sides and bottom. This reduces air exchange in two ways. First is the obvious, air cannot pass through the plastic, thus we have a contained volume of soil encased 75% with air tight plastic (or high fired ceramic (low fire ceramic will breathe). This is why I design my soil mixes and other environmental factors to 'dry out' the pot once a day during the growing season. Each time the plant is thoroughly watered, it pulls a new charge of air in behind it as the water drains. Secondly, we have to visit our old pot size argument again. When a downward moving table of water reaches an impermeable layer (in this case the plastic pot bottom) it will not drain until the layer just above the impermeable layer (pot bottom) is saturated. Once this lower layer of soil is saturated, excess water will drain out, but a column of saturated soil will remain since the moving table of water has stopped at the impermeable layer. This means that the soil in the bottom of the pot remains saturated at this lowest level after watering, and stays saturated until something happens to change that condition. That 'something' is primarily absorption from the roots in the bottom of the pot, the secondary factor is (or should be) evaporation. You will probably want to read this paragraph again, and perhaps a third time, it is not obvious. Overpotting Most of the water in the pot is removed from the pot by absorption by the roots and not by evaporation. If you overpot, it will take a long time for roots to colonize the bottom of the container and consequently it will take much longer for the saturated layer to become fully aerated (the only factor at work is evaporation). Overpotting will generally lead to too wet conditions and eventually root rot. What About that Saturated Column Thing? Ok, just how high a column of saturated soil do you get in a container? The height of the column of water retained in the soil by an impermeable layer is related to size of the particles. Sound familiar? The denser the soil, the higher the column will be and the more water will be retained. Large particle, highly aerated soils will not support a large saturated volume. This is what we mean by 'well drained'. You can test this for yourself. Take a regular sponge, soak it with water. Rest it in your hand horizontally until the water stops running out. Then tilt the spronge upright. You are now increasing the saturated column. The sponge density won't support a column that high and water will drain out. This experiment also shows that pot shape is related to water retention. A broad shallow pot will retain more water than a tall narrow pot of equal volume. Although it is counterintuitive, a shallow pot will retain more water and 'dry out' more slowly than a tall narrow one (of equal volume).

Your display is very important to haw well your produce sells - we had a vendor a few years back that had some of the best specialty potatoes at one of the markets we attend that was a total failure in marketing. He set cardboard boxes on the ground, chainsmoked all morning and dressed like he had just come from digging the spuds. His produce was very nice and reasonably priced but people took one look at his "booth" and shyed away. Was a shame as when you got to know him he was a great guy. Over the years we have tried several different things - some work better than others. We started using small baskets for our display but they were not very efficient on using table space (tall and round meant people were constantly digging through to see the bottom and damaging the produce). We now use wooden crates that I build in the offseason but several vendors use pop flats or plastic trays which also work well. We also try to keep products in a logical order on the tables - new potatoes go next to the green beans, all the summer squashes next to each other, ect. It's on old marketing trick you see in grocery stores and works well. Signage is also important. We tried the old style sandwich board out front with prices but for soome reason people never looked at it. Now we use regular paper and MS Word to make signs on slips about 3" tall with the name of the item and the price. Those get laminated (one of the best investments we made was a simple hand crank laminator from Staples) then taped to the table right in front of the item. The signs are re-usable and as prices change we simply make a new tag filling the old one in the market box for future work. Your still going to get people asking what your prices are but it has helped cut a lot of that problem back. Boulderbelt sugested getting ice chests to use - could not agree more. Try watching garage sales as they are a great place to find decient used coolers at a good price. We like the 48 quart size best. They hold enough to get the job done but are not too heavy to manage. He also sugested an EZ-Up canopy. Again right on the money. We have both 10X10 and 12X12's - the 12's are nice but not as durable as the 10's. We always (ALWAYS) always use tiedowns on the corners no matter how calm the weather is. The tent goes up then the tiedown goes on immediatly (concrete block and bungies) on all the legs. The Richland Market we attend is in a rather open area and has proven to be a canopy killer. I bet there were a dozen canopies blown loose there last year including on of ours when the stall next ot us broke loose and caught the corner of ours. You'll have a blast doing this and all the little things will come to you after a bit. Tom

1) without roots all nutrients, water etc are in short supply with no replacement from outside (this includes cuttings stuck in water) Know also that flowering/seed production require a lot of energy..... so Yes it is important to remove the flowers