Oh no 
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Oh yes!!
Squirrels have been much sneakier this year. They won’t get in a trap with peanut butter and sunflower seeds. Instead, they have gone after fruit including jujubes for the first time this year.
They ruined so many of my Korean Giant pears that I had to puck all of the KG today, a week earlier than I normally would. But I can’t stand seeing this type of damage everyday.
.
They did not finish each fruit. After they damaged those pears, yellow jackets moved in. Very frustrating.
This was a light year for KG. The tree never goes biennial but will have heavy year and light year alternately. I also thinned a lot off so many of this pear are huge.
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My yard is full of uninvited guests.
In an order of showing up from the spring to the fall:
Bunnies, squirrels, chipmunks, birds, groundhogs, an opossum and deer. The last one was a no show for a couple of years. I don’t count skunks and turkeys as they do no damage to my fruit as far as I am concerned.
I thought that was a full list until this morning.
It was resting in my trap. It just dawned on me why my Asian pears were decimated.
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At least some of that damage is Yellowjackets only, squirrels don’t make divots like that. If you have a hoard of Yellowjackets they can do huge damage.
This year I got very little hornet Yellowjacket etc damage, I didn’t even need to put out my traps. If only the deer got the same message… they got most of my apple crop. The trees are slowly getting above their reach but not fast enough.
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I do have a lot more yellow jackets this year than ever. However, YJ usually don’t cause pears to drop to the ground, right? YJ can eat all the flesh and the fruit is still hanging. I definitely have seen more YJ damage on pears, apples and plums this year.
Often each morning, I saw 3-5 KG (the only pears that had more fruit this year) on the ground and many had teeth marks on them. I blamed squirrels but after catching this raccoon, I think I got raccoon (and the elusive opossum) attack at night and squirrels during the day.
At this point, I have 4 small apple trees with fruit left. The battle goes on.
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This is the end of the 2023 growing season. It is time for a rant.
Two most disappointing fruit trees in my yard.
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Nikita’s Gift persimmon. Planted it around 2015. It started to flower in year 3 but dropped all fruitlets. 100% fruitlet dropping (100+ of them) went on for several years. There were only 2 years that I got a few fruit to ripen, a total of a dozen fruit. It tasted good. Then, this spring the tree did not wake up. No clue why. Other people have better luck with NG than me.
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Mango pawpaw, planted about the same time. The tree is fast growing. After 8 years of waiting, it set a few fruit this year. The first one tasted alright but had stringy texture.
This last one dropped on 11/1/23.
Its bitter taste was obvious and the texture was still stringy. What a waste of my time (8 years) for this variety.
@SMC_zone6 I believe you grow Mango, too, right? How does it taste to you? I will definitely graft my over to other varieties.
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Tippy… What fruit trees are you the most satisfied with in the past 3-5 years? Your top 5!
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Marco,
To me, the easiest and most rewarding fruit in my yard are jujubes. I like the taste and texture of Honey Jar and Sugar Cane. Thanks to @tonyOmahaz5 who suggested to me way back, and to @BobVance for providing first hand experience of many jujube varieties for us to look into.
There is no close second. Korean Giant takes the second place. Relatively easy to grow, produce a lot of large, sweet, crunchy and deliciously refreshing fruit. Need to spray for pests including plum curculio, coddling moth and stink bugs. I want to get some clean fruit to give away as gifts.
Mirabelle plums take the 3rd place. It is like eating fresh candies. Produce in abundance but will go biennial if not thin well. Pests seem ti leave them alone. It could be cause fruit size is so small. Brown rot and black knot are a big issue, esp. black knot even if using fungicide.
Harrow Sweet pear - was easy to grow until this year. Fungus, esp. sooty blotch ruined all HS crop this year as trees got rain soaked repeatedly and this variety is in a partial shade. Even with several spray of fungicide I could not keep up. Otherwise, it is precocious and produces good, sweet, melting pear that DOES NOT need refrigeration. Refrigerating pears is my headache.
Freckle Face nectarine. Growing nectarine is harder than peaches. This variety is really worth my time and effort. Beautiful, sweet, tasty fruit.
For fruit trees that people consider “easy”, I have pawpaws, persimmons and figs. I can’t eat a lot of pawpaws and so far, only Shenandoah is what I like. Other varieties have not ripened even though this is Nov 4. Sure, the trees are easy to grow.
Persimmons, I like the non astringent type but can’t grow it here. Even Yates that I like, I get bored after a while. I still have a nightmare from Nikita’s Gift.
Figs, have only in pots. After getting a lot of scales and fig rust one year, I no longer consider figs easy to grow. Even in pits some varieties do not ripen in time, either. Need to stay with early ripen varieties.
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Tippy,
That’s such great information, especially for your neighbors like me! 
Which Mirabelle plums do you have? De Nancy, De Metz, New York, American…? I’ve been looking to graft my French Plum with a few varieties. I was thinking Vision and the Mirabelle variety you have.
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I would go for Parfume de Septembre and de Nancy. De Nancy is a tad bigger (if you can call mirabelles that).
Maybe, @SMC_zone6 can chime in re. Fruit trees he likes. He is our neighbor, too.
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@PharmerDrewee ,
I forgot about the two Shin Li until yesterday. I grafted on a Korean Giant a bit above my head so I did not notice it for a while. They turned greenish yellow.
I should have noticed it because it is the only branch that have fully green leaves even after 29F night. You can see that the rest of this Korean Giant has pretty much no leaves left. I am impressed that the leaves are so cold tolerant.
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I found a couple on the tree that I missed yesterday. They were still deliciously crisp. Time to sample them!
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They are in the fridge for now. I have so many apples but only a handful of Asian pears.
How long Shin Li will keep?
These pears are quite large. 14 oz and 12 oz.
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They can keep until spring but might not last very long since you picked them later.
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I will remember to pick them earlier next year!! Thank you.
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I grafted over it for better varieties. It seems like pawpaws are one of those fruits that are seeing a lot of rapid improved introductions. I keep trying to add earlier ripening and better flavor.
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Hybrid persimmons have been great for me. Russeted apples. Early ripening pawpaws. Hildreth plum. Those ones come to mind for easiest to grow and ones that I really enjoy eating. But @mamuang is a better fruit grower than me and holds herself to a higher stander. I one time chased after a chipmunk to take back a half eaten strawberry. That pretty much sums up my standards.
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I am not a better grower, Steven. I have grown fruit for more years so I have accumulated more mistakes.
I also don’t hold myself to a higher standard. I just have bigger targets!!! I have chased squirrels and taken back my apples. Squirrels often know to pick the more ripened and better looking fruit. I want those fruit back.
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Just want to wrap up my late ripening fruit.
Pawpaws - Wabash and Sunflower in shade did not ripen in time. @SMC_zone6 ’s Wabash, in a sunnier spot (I bet), ripened a few weeks earlier. I picked them before temp dropped below 27 F (it was actually 22 F the night after I picked my pawpaws.
Wabash were large. Sunflower were not.
Left them on the counter, ate a couple. They did taste that good, not as creamy or flavorful as the ones that ripened properly. I threw away the rest. Not worth eating pawpaws that were underripe.
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The very late ones are persimmons. Rojo Brillante were picked 10 days ago. Beautiful fruit.
I did not get around to work on getting rid of its astringency until about 4- 5 days ago.
This batch went into a closed plastic bags with ripe bananas (5 whole bananas).
Took them out today. Too much moisture in the bag, bananas got some molds on them. Persimmons were fine. The flesh was mostly firm. Sweet but not as sweet as I hoped for. A tiny bit of astringency near the stem.
I have 5 Rojo Brillante in a tight plastic container with vodka in cups.
Will see if vodka will work.
@murky - I have just used these simpler methods to get rid of astringency.
@jrd51 bananas have worked well for me with JT-02.
These are JT 02 and Yates.
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