Re- evaluating bagging fruit

700 - lotta work

Took me about 4 days, a couple of hours a day. It depends on the outcome. If the peaches turn out clean all the way, it will be worth the effort :smile:

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I do about 300 apples, plus some pears - it’s certainly worth the effort for undamaged fruit.

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What kind of bags do you use for pears? .
When I used ziplock bags, my Euro pears became russeted` so I stop using them.

I use nylon bags instead. It is tougher for squirrels to chew through. With plastic ziplock bags, squirrels have no issue chewing through.

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Peaches are not easily bagged due to the short stems. I think getting 700 blemish free peaches is worth the effort. When I’m bagging I keep telling myself that my extra effort results in less spraying time as the fruit grows. Very impressive.

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Very interested in your post - as we seem to have very similar problems. Bagging seems to be an enormous amount of work, though . . . depending on how many fruit trees - and how tall, etc. Everyone on the forum who ‘bags’ - hats off to you!

One evening we counted almost a dozen promising peaches on our little Red Haven tree (I posted how excited I was) . . . and by the next evening they were all GONE! Raccoons I expect - as they ‘go out to eat’ in a group. Polished them all off in one night. ‘Lawn guys’ come once a week to mow - and I used to suspect them, as the culprits! But, they wouldn’t be so brazen as to swipe ALL the peaches! It must have been the raccoons or perhaps possum. But, wouldn’t I find the pits nearby, if it was raccoons or possum? I can’t think of ‘who’ else it might be! Deer? I wish I had a camera nearby to catch them at it!
Other than it is so much fun to TRY to grow decent fruit . . . it would be a LOT cheaper and less frustrating to buy my peaches at the orchard near my house! I just can’t give up the fight, tho! LOL :wink:

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I use ziplocks, but currently only on the Seckel pears. Russeting doesn’t seem to be a problem. Nor is it a problem for me on the Kieffers, with skins already too rough

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@Auburn, that’s what keep me going. Telling myself there will be no more spraying after this.

@PomGranny, it took longer to bag peaches with paper bags than bagging apples with a plastic zip lock bags.

@ltilton, my full sized apples all went biennial this year so I don’t have many apples to bag. I have two dwarf trees and an apple from other trees here and there. All together, I may have 40 apples top!!!
The pears I bagged with plastic zip lock were Harrow Sweet. They are thin-skinned pears. When I saw them russeting two years in a row, I stop using those bags.

I like my Euro pears so much (and they are only a few of them) so I try to slow down squirrels. I don’t protect Asian pears much. I sprayed Surround a couple of times. No bagging. It’s a down year for them, too. I may have a total of 50 Asain pears from my 3 trees :weary:

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My Gala went biennial last year and I had only a dozen apples off my runty Fuji

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I use larger nylon bags, which are harder for squirrels to bite onto the fruit, on my Euro pears, one of my highly valued fruit. However, that did not deter groundhogs who took quite a few bagged pears with them.

I had a window screen (mosquito screen). I believe Mr. Clint introduced the metal screen bags on this forum. So, I cut the screen off its frame, wrapped the whole branch of my Magness pears with it and stapled it.

My Magness pears are on the lowest branch of the tree making it easy for squirrels and groundhogsto reach them. Not sure if this screen will be helpful but it’s worth trying.

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Your screen sleeve looks almost identical to some of mine that’s over the Korean Giant. I have only had one minor problem with these. One of my limbs was low (1.5’) to the ground and the raccoons managed to get a small hole a pull out one or two pears.

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That branch is about 2 ft of the ground.
I hate groundhogs. Never understand why they are protected.

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Groundhogs are protected?

A lot of places, all furbearers are protected

Sad to report that deer discovered that there were tasty peaches inside the Clemson fruit bags, and stripped about 200 off my one tree. They didn’t miss a single one. Yard looked like I ran over a newspaper with my mower. So I guess I need a fence plus these bags… Meanwhile, squirrels are stripping my apple trees of apples bagged in ziplocs. They are working much slower, so I’m hoping I will still end up with at least a few.

Sometimes you just can’t win.

Turns out, they are not fully protected. People can killed it with bullets or drowning. It’s also against the law to poison wildlife (groundhogs are wildlife) due to concerns about secondary poisoning.

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Sorry to hear that, Mike.

As of this morning, I rescued one apple with bite marks (squirrel’s) on the ground. Yesterday saw a few A pears on the ground and clean pit of a peach near the shed (groundhog).

A few days ago, my two young trees with plum and pluot grafts (7 total grafts on two small trees) had no leaves left. Deer ate them all.

We have increased number of bunnies. Even my neighbors who are not orchardists get upset with bunnies and groundhogs eating their flowers and veggies.

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Bagging sleeve


Plum or Pluot ripe. Very sweet plum/peach flavor with a small pit.

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Bill,
Do you hace PC, OFM or CM? How welp this sceen does against them? Can they lay eggs through the screen?

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