Apples

How many did we get?  A bushel and a peck . . .

We have a small apple tree in our garden that had been neglected for many, many years.  Two years ago Bob pruned it and sprayed a little and last year we got two buckets of apples, most of them had some apple maggots but we managed to get a little applesauce made from the better ones.   Last fall he severely pruned the tree and all through the spring and summer he has been spraying the tree at regular intervals to see if we could conquer the worm issue.  

 The harvest

Yesterday we harvested 9 bags of apples!  We picked all the ones we could reach by hand and ladder.  Then Bob got out his picker on a pole and grabbed the last few from the top branches.  Most of the apples look really good but we know several still probably have wormholes so we will lose some of the crop.  Bob plans more pruning after the leaves turn and drop off.

 

A sample of the colors.  The apples shown above fell off the tree when we were picking the ones around them so a couple have bruises or cuts.  The apples are Jonathan, I think.  The tree must be close to 50 years old and does not have a label on it.  The fruit is more tart than sweet and makes great applesauce or pie.