Indifferent bloom on my Frankentree, with only Liberties. Most of those pollinated well, but I missed a spray and ended up with a lot of codling moth damage, plus I had some hail damage.
Those things I understand, but something I’m not used to is fruit rotting on the tree. Also had some shriveling while still on the tree. Mind, it hasn’t been overly warm this summer and this is fairly early for a harvest- plus, I’m surprised to see fruit hang on to the tree if it’s overripe instead of dropping.
I baked one of the Liberties tonight and it almost acted like it was a little fermented, splitting the skin dramatically without being baked clear through. Not sure whether that was the apple or the cook …
Anyhow, I’m pretty sure next year will be better- and the good news is that my pear crop is pretty decent.
But wait- a little more bad news: my storage cooler died, and I don’t really even have room for my small harvest
Mark,
I saw the small refrigerators at Walmart for $79 which might work for you. Sorry to hear you did not get as good a crop as normal. I had some rot this year on pears for the first time. Thankfully I did not get a lot. Some fruits shriveled on the tree which I marked up to storm damage figuring the stem was cracked in a storm.hopefully you will have a better fruit harvest in 2017.
Sorry to hear you had a bad year with your apple trees. Apples are such a high maintenance crop, I don’t understand why so many people are into collecting them especially in southern areas. Here in SC what does’t get attacked by bugs seem to cook on the trees. I only have 1 apple tree left and will be removing it soon like I did the others.
Good to know that at least your pears are doing well. Sorry about the problems with your Liberty apple. I pretty sure it has been your best producer in years past.
Thanks all. We’ll not worry too much about the rot issue unless it keeps happening. As for the damaged stems causing problems, well, we did have some pretty serious winds so maybe that was the cause. Looks like I’ll have to chase down one of those dorm type refrigerators. Hadn’t thought of that before. (The one I have cost me a buck, so I guess I did OK on it.)
And, I did get some fruit! So it’s not like I struck out entirely.
Mark, I also had much worse rot than usual on a few varieties. Newtown is a bust, every single apple either rotted or got swiped by deer (its in a spot with no sprinkler protection so highly prone to deer). Rubinette I lost about half to rot. I always get some later rot but not like this. One thing I did not get was the usual sooty blotch layer and I wonder if that was protecting me from rot. I sprayed Indar in late June but not since then. Maybe that spray did in the blotch but then the rot came in and I did not have a spray on it. Nature works in subtle ways - one thing I noticed on my grapes for example was the downy mildew would keep out the black rot.
Great idea. I’m considering using one assuming my fruit harvest continue to improve. This year I just crammed the extra fruit in our house frig and passed the extra on to my daughter/family as soon as I could.
Those little fridges can be a rip-off if you get the wrong one, they vary from $25 to $80 per year worth of power to operate. So, make sure to pay attention to the efficiency and power it off when its not storing apples.
Yes, also watch for differential cooling in those small fridges. 33 degrees on the bottom shelf might be 28 degrees up top near the freezer portion of the fridge. I run into that all the time with my small beer fridge. Bottles placed up top sometime get ice crystals.
M