Hello, all. I have been obsessing about finding a more comfortable and safe way to pick apples. I don’t want to e constantly going up and down a ladder or turning to place fruit in a basket or cart.
I currently have a hard front basket attached to suspenders. I hate it, it’s hot and totally unsafe for ladder work since it is pressed up against the ladder and gets caught on rungs. Moreover, I am forced to bend my body away from the ladder, and that causes poor balance and a backache.
I also have a Roo apron, and I dont like it either. Too easy to spill all the apples out, and it’s hard on my back to have all that weight in front.
I have been thinking about canvas bags with belt loops, kind of like ammo dump bags, but bigger. I could put several on the belt, balanced so my back isn’t tweaked.
In the meantime, I have been placing apples in old grocery hand baskets, which fit perfectly in a sideways position on my Gorilla cart. This part is fine… it’s inconvenient, time consuming, and back breaking work of transferring the apple from tree to grocery cart that needs upgrading.
I have two approaches, depending on my mood, and neither is much of an improvement over your ideas.
I take a square 4 gallon plastic bucket up the ladder and set it on the utility tray. When it’s full I carry it down and empty it into a cardboard box.
Or, I take a supply of plastic bread bags and twist ties up the ladder and put the apples in the bag as I pick. When the bag is full I twist it off and start another; I can generally get three bags before I have to come down. That’s about 9 pounds worth.
Not an improvement over your method, but at least with my second approach the apples are bagged and ready for storage right away, so I don’t have to handle them again.
When I was a child I would climb trees to pick the fruit of wild muscadine vines. I needed a way to carry all of the fruit and free up my hands for descending. I took a recently emptied gallon milk jug, washed it out well and cut a sizable opening on the side opposite the handle, roughly centered on the the bend that turns from vertical to near horizontal.
I ran my belt through the handle and then back through the belt loops of my shorts, keeping the jug at my side and from sliding around much at all. It worked great as my harvest basket.
My new idea as of this morning is to buy two appropriately sized denim mini skirts at a thrift store (maybe size 4?) and sew a zipper into the bottom, then use the pre-existing belt loops to secure 2, one on each hip, to a canvas belt. The denim waist area is stiff enough to stay open and the zipper on the bottom would let me have 2 ways to empty the bag (top and bottom).
I’ve seen wicker-type backpacks with a light aluminum frame that might work. In combination with the bread bag idea, they wouldn’t have so far to fall to the bottom of the basket…?
i have a strange canvas backpack that’s just a big cloth bucket basically. i think it’s a simple military pack, maybe Vietnam era. it was from one of my uncles. i am planning to put wire in it and a big plastic bag or sack to line it, next time i am picking up in my friend’s trees- then I can just toss apples and cherries or whatever, over my shoulder into the bag. it’s not very big it’s about half size of those military packs. it’ll probably hold 15 pounds or so
i have been keeping my own trees under 10 feet tall, pruning like bonsai lol i want to walk and pick
Another thought I had was car trash cans, the type that have the dog collar type latches to hold them onto the back of headrests. If they can be tightened down enough they probably wouldn’t slide around a belt much. They’re usually stiff bottomed, and some are designed to stay open without lids. If they’re 8” wide x 3” deep x 12” tall, that would hold about 12 average apples. I don’t know how comfortable 3 of them would be on a belt, though. Probably about as comfortable as 3 milk jugs on a belt, but at least they are free!
Another thought I had was those upland game vests, which have 2 big pockets in the front and a big open bag in the back to put the dead birds in, apparently. Sounds much more hygienic to me to slip apples back there. But I imagine after a while your wrist would get sore turning it to put apples behind you.
Never tried bread bags. Are they better than plastic produce bags for storing apples? Does anyone have a source for those heavy plastic bags with holes in them that the big growers use for apples?
I would take the bottom off and then cut the bottom out of the bottle. Running some string or p cord through the cup and attaching to the bottle made a great berry holder with a lid. It was great for a kid fighting his way through the berry patches.
I would hang it around my neck and have two hands free to pick
I’ve used them for years -bought a box of 2000 15" long poly bread bags when I retired. Each will hold about 3 pounds, and I stash them in a spare fridge that I try to keep at about 30 F. (The apples don’t freeze at that temperature because they have enough sugar in them. Sometimes ice crystals form in the bags without hurting the apples).
Don’t know where you’d get perforated bags, but your green grocer might.
I just did a search for basket backpacks and all sorts of them came up with a range of prices. This one is reasonable, although I’m not sure how it straps on to your back:
There are videos on how to make your own, and the idea of just a simple backpack made out of canvas might be lighter. Instead of having the drawstring top though, maybe replace it with some sort of metal ring so it stays open. The easiest thing would be to have someone pick with you that you could pass the container to in order to empty it as needed vs. going up and down a ladder!
They are gorgeous. I have a mushroom picking basket. I don’t think they would work for being on a ladder picking apples, though. How would you put the apples in the basket?
I saw that walmart sold harvest aprons - but I prefer the ones with a hip strap like a hiking backpack.
I ask about the ladder height because my trees are too tall and I have a doca pole with a basket on it. My basket just collects 3-4 fruit but they have this one:
I would just toss them over my shoulder, although if it’s a big drop to the bottom of the basket, the fruit would bruise. I was looking for a picture similar to what you posted showing an apron like shown! Supported by hips or on the center of the back seems like it would be able to carry more weight and be less stress on the body than holding the weight on one side and supporting it by your neck and/or shoulder.
The original poster was concerned about multiple trips up and down a ladder, but it would seem by the time the basket or apron was filled, you’d have to move the ladder to get to other apples in the tree!
As I was typing that, I was kind of envisioning some sort of pulley system that attaches to the ladder that could lower and dump the container. I have a leaf sweeper that I use in the fall that has a rope that when pulled, lifts the unit so it will dump where you want it.
I think multiple metal rings could go around the outside and be supported by each rung. (I was thinking sort of like how a notebook ring or padlock works.) A rope would be strung through the rings from the bottom of the ladder and be twice as long as the length of the ladder so that the bag or basket could be raised to reach the top of the ladder and then be lowered to the ground,
I also see some kind of cleat near the top to hold the rope and basket high while picking but that could be undone easily, and allow the picker to not have to have any weight on his or her person. Having another rope attached to the bottom of the bag or basket that could then be pulled in order to dump the apples out would also be necessary. That one only has to be one length and could have a loop so it could stay on the cleat or be wrapped around an upper rung until dumping time, where it would need to be pulled up. I have to think about it. Who knows, one might end up on Shark Tank!
12’ ladder, the tallest and heaviest I can move around a tree. As far as the bag goes, I am trying not to have any weight pulling on my neck. I am old. I can’t carry weight in front of me, either, even when I am on the ground. So I am thinking about things that can be attached to a belt. I would like to pick 25 apples before having to go down the ladder. Most of the things I have seen that stay open, like ammo dump bags, are way too small, even if I put three on a belt.
That picker with a hose looks nifty, but I bet all the apples are bruised.
@Barb I have tried pulling a bucket up and down with a rope and maybe because I haven’t rigged anything to the SIDE of the ladder, it’s gotten hung up in the rungs or been in the way when I have moved it.
I know I won’t sew up my mini skirt idea in time so I think I am going to see if my Mom’s walker bag might stay secure around my belt. Think she’ll notice if it comes back with bits of sticks and leaves and an earwig?
I wonder if you might be able to fit 20 to 25 of your apples in four of the one gallon milk jugs. I know that I could space four of them around my waist on just the sides and back, keeping the weight low and increasing my ability to stay safe.
