Bagging fruit on the tree
gnappi
12 years ago
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squam256
12 years agopuglvr1
12 years agoRelated Discussions
thinning fruit/placing fruit in a bag on the branch
Comments (6)Strange it may seem, Zinia, but it is that little bag (or similar arrangement) that protects the fruit from insects in the event you don't want to spray with insecticides every week. And who does? Apples grow in clusters, just as they blossom. Normally, there are about 6 blooms to a cluster, but sometimes 7 or even 8. Thinning normally consists of removing all but the very best, unmarked, largest apple from the cluster. You may choose to thin to 2 fruits per cluster, or even 3, but you need to thin, and the biggest best apples grow alone in the cluster, after all the others have been removed. You may have more fruit this year than the year past. If you summer prune your trees you will see even more, because you will have more fruiting spurs. I don't know exactly what puzzles you about bagging apples, but here is a quick outline of the procedure: 1. Buy a box of ziplock sandwich bags. Not the freezer bags, which are heavier. You want the lightweight stuff. 2. Take a scissors, and cut off the strip of plastic above the actual zipper closure. Now the zipper is right at the top of the bag. Make sure you open the zipper before you cut off the plastic above it, or you will have a hell of a time getting it open. 3. With the same pair of scissors, cut off the corners of the bags at the bottom to allow drainage. Now your bags are ready to install. 4. Place the bag over the little apple, with the stem in the center of the zipper, then close from both sides by gentle squeezing until you have it snug up to the stem. Make sure it clicks shut all the way across except where the stem passes through. 5. Stand back and admire your work. It is easier to do this job after thinning, when there is only one apple per cluster, but it is possible with two. More than that becomes a little complicated. 6. If you notice insect damage before you bag, you may have to use an insecticide in the interim, but if you find one nice undamaged apple you are home free, so you can remove and discard curculio damaged fruit. Try it. Good Luck. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA...See MoreBagging Apples: wait for fruit drop or bag now?
Comments (7)Paul and/or Irene: I am totally on board with tcstoehr on this one. Get up there and thin those apples immediately, to one fruit per cluster. When you do, you may notice there is already some apparently minor insect damage in the form of small scars, holes, or just dark colored lines. These imperfections that may seem minor now will later become major. So start by thinning all those apples off that have even the slightest imperfections. After that, go for the fattest, fastest-developing fruit. Once the chosen fruit is alone in the cluster, bag it. Waiting for fruit drop is a recipe for disaster if you have any kind of insect activity around. By leaving more than one fast-developing fruit in the cluster you are ensuring that neither or none of them will grow up to its full potential. Once all but one has been removed, the one you leave will begin to grow even faster. Unhappiness is thinning off all but one fat apple, then finding out the one you have selected has also been selected by the plum curculio or codling moth on the side you could not see. I am thinning right now, and my apples are much smaller than one inch. However, I am able to idenfity those with the best potential, and usually find the insect damage in time to remove it. Clusters of apples are more attractive to insects than singleton fruits. Insects are efficiency experts. I usually work with a small scissors when I can clearly see what I am doing, but if I have to reach into the tree I also try to roll or break off the apples gently with my fingers. You have to be careful because fruiting clusters are still quite tender at this time of year, and can be easily broken off. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA...See MoreSquirrels took apples in bags
Comments (33)If you bait your traps at night and check them first thing in the morning then your kids will not see any squirrel nearly all the time - they tend to show up early and check out whatever is new then. The one thing I have not done right with my Kania traps is I mounted them to fixed trees and I think they are really better on posts you can hammer into the ground near wherever the squirrels are causing trouble. Once I get some time I am going to re-mount two of them as portable traps. I have a pile of havahart traps that I could not get to reliably work. Part of the problem is dogs etc would kick them over to get the crackers and I never built a platform for them out of dogs reach. This is the reason the Kania need to be on a pole, you don't want Fido from next door with a crushed paw whining in your backyard. Scott...See MoreStoring bagged fruit in bags?
Comments (12)Leaving the fruit in the bag traps the ethylene produced by ripening fruit, which accelerates the ripening. If you want fruit to ripen quickly, put it in a paper bag to capture ethylene gas, but take fruit out of the bag when you put in the frig to slow down ripening. Keeping fruit in plastic bags will make it rot quicker because the trapped moisture encourages mold. The reason everyone started talking about canning so quickly, was they thought that they might have a chance to prevent you poisoning yourself and others with improperly canned fruit. Botulism has no taste or odor, but will kill you. Other organisms can make you wish we were dead for a few days of uncontrolled diarrhea and bowel cramps. Properly preserved fruits grown at home are great and often taste better than commercially grown fresh fruit, but you must do it properly. The reason fruit preservers are called fruit preservers is that before modern canning equipment and procedures were available, that was the safest and easiest way to preserve fresh fruits. Adding sugar to the fruit and boiling it to reduce off part of the water in the fruit was the best way to raise the boiling point of water above 212F/100C, which killed most microbes. This allowed people to have fruits during long winter months when sources of vitamin C were scarce....See Moremarinfla
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