#!@#!# Deer

General Fruit Growing
#21

We have tried to keep cats here, but can’t seem to keep them around. We were using them as rodent control, maybe the 'yotes were getting to them?

Wow, that is a LOT of Mac’s! The fruit from that and the Haralson look pretty clean, do you maintain a spray regimen with them? I haven’t heard a lot about Haralson, isn’t that an older UMinn variety? What kind of flavor, texture, storage properties does it have? I love the deep red color of the fruit.

I see you’re in Harrison county Iowa, bet it’s cold there tonight! We’re sitting at a comfy 23 degrees, as of midnight Sat.

#22

Ditto on the rodent control… This little show-off was at the deck door wanting in from the cold weather Wednesday. My wife actually let him in before she noticed his catch of the day. I put him back outside pronto and he sat there at the door for awhile looking in. Gagger!

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Yes the Mac is a huge tree, and I never harvest to the top. Young and dumb when I planted that guy…

I do spray fairly regularly, and still even in years when other varieties get hammered pretty good due to excessive pressure, or rain making my spray less effective, etc., the Haralson seems to get by a lot better. They’re not a magnet for anything and even the birds don’t seem to prefer them. But they are a pretty hard apple, and they also do not harvest easy, hanging on to the tree very well even when dead ripe. I know I mentioned this before on the forum, but it’s pretty common to see deer teeth marks in some of the apples when I go to harvest them. It’s like the deer even give up after awhile.

They keep a very long time, in fact we were using some from last year clear up until I think April or May. My wife cuts them up and puts them in oatmeal. And yes they are a U of M offering so pretty cold hardy I guess. They are a rather bland apple to my taste, but I must be in the minority on that. We gave a lot of them away and one guy was eating one a day from a large bag in his office - non-refrigerated and has been since the first part of October! His wife called the other day and said she made the best pie and wondered if we had more, that she would pay us for them!!! (We have plenty and will gladly give them more. Just love it when people appreciate them!)

So yes they keep very well. The coloration is not consistent from one year to the next. They’re not this uniformly deep red every year, and I have no idea why. Some years they’re like this others a bit lighter and less attractive overall. They’ll often have some red streaking into the flesh. I tend to think they get a bit more tasty with age, but I also think I will never love this apple, but man a lot of folks do!

Yes it was 6 degrees when I had my morning coffee today, and it’s not supposed to get much lower than 15 or 16 tonight so it’ll be a heatwave!!

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#23

Funny pic of the kitty with its booty in his mouth. Reminds me of a cat we had back home in OK when I was a kid. One of them brought one of his prey in the house once. But, it wasn’t a mouse, it was a small snake! You can imagine the chaos that caused!

Well maybe those other folks don’t get a lot of apples, and the Haralsons you gave them were better than what they’ve had before, which is nothing, or poor grocery store fruit.

We were like that before we went to an orchard that had over 50 different varieties to try. Before that, we were getting small gnarly, fly-specky apples from folks around here. About all they were good for was apple butter. But, after we tried some of the orchard’s fresh Honeycrisp, Macs, Golden Russet, Jonathan, Goldrush, Winesap, etc it was like an apple awakening.

We planted 14 apple trees back in the spring, and wanted to try some of the ones we’re growing. They had 9 of the 13 varieties. For the most part, I think we’ll have some good ones to try in a few years, including Goldrush and Golden Russet’s.

What other apple varieties do y’all have?

I did a quick look at your county online, looks like y’all got us beat by about 400 folks. The traffic there must be awful! I’m trying to do a quick mental recollection of how many traffic lights we have in our county, and I think there’s maybe 3 or 4. We have to drive about 20 miles before we see one.

Supposed to be about 17 here tonight, so the heat’s been on quite a bit. Had to move the 40lb of apples we got from the orchard out of the shed and put them in our insulated cellar. It’s about 37 in the cellar now. If it gets too cold outside, and to prevent our canned/jarred food from freezing, we switch the regular bulb out in the cellar with a heat bulb. Usually it stays above freezing in there when the outside temp stays above 10 degrees.

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#24

I stand corrected, my wife had initially told me that the guy eating an apple a day out of the bag we gave them were room temp apples, however last night after I asked her when she had arranged to get them more apples, as I want to be there so I can inquire about how the apple held up, tasted, etc., after not being chilled. She said “Oh, I’ve since talked to the wife and turns out that the hubby did have a refrigerator in his office” So he HAS NOT been eating Haralson at a one a day pace from room temp, and now I’m less shocked because I KNOW they keep forever in a refrigerator!

So, my bad sorry about that bit of misinformation.

Sounds like you did your homework on your selections. Wish I had a cellar!

I had 15 apple trees planted before the State Fair went down. Only 6 of the remaining 14 are of bearing age: McIntosh, Earliblaze, Red Del, Haralson, Empire, and Honeycrisp.

The younger non-bearing trees are: Yellow Del (should see a crop next year, had a few blossoms that aborted this year. Been in since '11) Goldrush (I have two of these in since '13) Sweet-Sixteen (in '13) Macoun (in '14) Starkspur UltraMac (in '14) MacFree (in '15) and Zestar (in '16)

I do sort of miss the State Fair but unsure if I’ll replace it. I had lost a Yellow Del a few years ago made the mistake of trying to replace it with a whip from the Arbor Day Foundation. That tree has been in 6 years and I would have been way ahead to get bigger stock right from the gate!

20 degrees right now with light snow. Not bad for this time of year.

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#25

They got one of mine, my best hunter

Now I keep the rest in at nite

#26

looking at those Macs I sure do miss their flavor after October.

#27

Me too. Macs are our favorite, they don’t hold up in baking (turn to mush) but the flavor is really something else. Which is why I decided to add in a couple additional Mac variants (MacFree & UltraMac). [My general worrisome nature that something like the Mac I love so much may some day call it quits].

But I must say the Empire is a very impressive apple for us as well. And I like the Honeycrisp a whole bunch, but it’s a bit temperamental. One year had the “yellows”, and this year didn’t make a single apple. But when it’s on - it’s a very good out of hand eating apple.

I still say if I could have only one tree it’d be McIntosh.

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#28

You would like macouns then, it’s like a Mac, but better in my opinion.