Are these your apple trees? If so, how do you guys keep all the bugs from eating your apples? We have two in our backyard and we don't want to use chemicals, but we can never enjoy our apples, because by the time they are big enough, the bugs have destroyed them. Any suggestions???
Bummer. Are your trees young or old? My in-laws seem to have similar trouble with their tree (and it is young). Ours is old. We have just one tree and we don't do anything with it, just pick the apples in the fall. Well, I guess Blaine pruned the heck out of it the winter of 2010. We didn't get any apples last year because it shocked the tree so badly! He's going to prune again this winter, but a bit more gently.
Anyway, we don't do anything to the tree chemical or otherwise. The apples can be wormy, just a little. I cut the wormy ones up and make applesauce with them.
Also, we've noticed if they aren't picked at the right time, bugs starting eating them. We're talking HUGE holes. Asian beetles, which are not native to this area, and were introduced to control the aphid population on the soybeans are the culprit. When the soybean plants start to dry up and die (and subsequently, when they are harvested), we get MASSIVE amounts of Asian beetles swarming the house. They are inside all winter and hide in the cracks of houses. Oogie! They are ugly and they stink.
So yes, if the apples stay on the tree too long, they start getting eaten. We picked this last weekend, but realized that we should have picked the weekend before, when the apples were totally pristine. If we had waited another week, our crop would have been decimated by the Asian beetles.
Do you know what is eating your apples? Does senario #2 sound at all familiar? Or are the apples wormy...?
You're so lucky that you have two apple trees! What an asset to any place, though I do know some people hate 'em because they are so messy if they aren't actually using the apples. Do you know what varieties they are, and/or when they ripen?
We planted the trees a couple years ago. So, they are quite young, but have had a good amount of apples on them. They are honeycrisp apples. And the Asian beetles completely destroyed both our trees this year! It was horrible! Even when they are small, like earlier this summer, the bugs already seem to get at them. Sound like you are lucky to have a tree that you don't have to treat! I hope I can figure out how to get ours to do well, I REALLY don't want to put chemical on them, we get enough of that with all the rest of our produce. Thanks Shawna!
3 comments:
Are these your apple trees? If so, how do you guys keep all the bugs from eating your apples? We have two in our backyard and we don't want to use chemicals, but we can never enjoy our apples, because by the time they are big enough, the bugs have destroyed them. Any suggestions???
Bummer. Are your trees young or old? My in-laws seem to have similar trouble with their tree (and it is young). Ours is old. We have just one tree and we don't do anything with it, just pick the apples in the fall. Well, I guess Blaine pruned the heck out of it the winter of 2010. We didn't get any apples last year because it shocked the tree so badly! He's going to prune again this winter, but a bit more gently.
Anyway, we don't do anything to the tree chemical or otherwise. The apples can be wormy, just a little. I cut the wormy ones up and make applesauce with them.
Also, we've noticed if they aren't picked at the right time, bugs starting eating them. We're talking HUGE holes. Asian beetles, which are not native to this area, and were introduced to control the aphid population on the soybeans are the culprit. When the soybean plants start to dry up and die (and subsequently, when they are harvested), we get MASSIVE amounts of Asian beetles swarming the house. They are inside all winter and hide in the cracks of houses. Oogie! They are ugly and they stink.
So yes, if the apples stay on the tree too long, they start getting eaten. We picked this last weekend, but realized that we should have picked the weekend before, when the apples were totally pristine. If we had waited another week, our crop would have been decimated by the Asian beetles.
Do you know what is eating your apples? Does senario #2 sound at all familiar? Or are the apples wormy...?
You're so lucky that you have two apple trees! What an asset to any place, though I do know some people hate 'em because they are so messy if they aren't actually using the apples. Do you know what varieties they are, and/or when they ripen?
We planted the trees a couple years ago. So, they are quite young, but have had a good amount of apples on them. They are honeycrisp apples. And the Asian beetles completely destroyed both our trees this year! It was horrible! Even when they are small, like earlier this summer, the bugs already seem to get at them. Sound like you are lucky to have a tree that you don't have to treat! I hope I can figure out how to get ours to do well, I REALLY don't want to put chemical on them, we get enough of that with all the rest of our produce. Thanks Shawna!
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