This is how I envisioned the first apple harvest from my own small apple trees would be.
Sitting on a lush field of green surrounded by antique wicker baskets spilling with fresh, crisp apples. These apples would magically transform themselves into pies. Obviously. As I floated across the grass towards home, wicker basket nestled in the crook of my arm, I'd glance over my shoulder at the wonder of the world that created this feast of sweet fruit. . Also I would look super-cute.
This is how it actually was.
Sorry to shatter the dream.
I did end up getting slightly more than one apple from my very first true apple harvest but it wasn't much more than one. I got 11 apples. Of the 6 varieties I grow I managed to salvage 2 varieties. The rest were stolen by a band of ne're do well squirrels.
In defence of my dream, the apples I did get were gorgeous. Big, healthy fruit without a single blemish. My main harvest was of Jonagolds, a sweet eating apple with a barely there tartness.
How did this happen? How did I go from 70 apples on my tree to 11?
This is a Typical Small Apple Tree Harvest
Like this:
- In early June I thinned my apples to one apple per cluster to improve the quality of my apples.
- After thinning I was left with 70 apples on my 2, small espalier trees.
- Every apple was bagged with a ventilated plastic bag to keep disease and critters off of them.
- Early July I noticed the apples were so hot in their bags because of our scorching summer that the skin on some of them was scalded, so I removed the bags.
- Enter critters, stage left.
- One morning in late July I glanced out my kitchen window to see an apple sitting on my neighbour's fence. Weird. I wonder why she left that there.
- The next morning I found an apple under my tomato plant.
- That night I found a half eaten apple in the middle of the road.
- A few days later, looking down upon me from my roof was a squirrel. With an apple.
- This continued off and on for the next few weeks until I finally tangled my espalier trees up with deer fencing so squirrels couldn't get to my apples.
- And then I found more apples scattered around the neighbourhood.
- I tightened up the knot of fencing around my trees and hoped for the best. Squirrels are more tenacious than you might think. And smarter. And hungrier.
By the end of the season I had 11 apples left.
When you consider both the size of the trees and myself there's really no reason to be disappointed. I can only eat so many apples and wouldn't have anywhere to keep baskets upon baskets of them for long term storage anyway.
So really it's kind of a good thing that I only got 11 apples. Although a few bushels may have been just the nudge I needed to move to an actual farm where I'd have farmhands neatly lined up in military trenches ready to shoot squirrels.
When I first picked my apples I shared a picture of them on Instagram and everyone wanted to know if I had picked these apples myself WHY would they have stickers on them???
Good question.
Before picking the apples I put a sticker on them to indicate which type they were so I wouldn't get them confused. J for Jonagold, M for McIntosh and ? for Don't know what the hell this one is, I found it on the ground.
My 9 apples are now stored safely in my refrigerator. Only 9 because I ate two of them. If I don't force myself to eat them right away, I'm the type of person who will continue to save these few apples I'm so very proud of, until they just rot into a liquid puddle of squoo at the bottom of my fridge.
I shall now formulate a plan to get me through next year's harvest with at least 30 apples and no dead squirrels.
I've already taken care of the most important part of it all - I've ordered a new vintage apple picking dress.
→Follow me on Instagram where I often make a fool of myself←
Emily
It won't be any consolation, but when I read your reasoning behind thinning the apples, I thinned the apples on our little tree, which fairly freaked out my husband, and made me really really hope you were right. Because of past experience, I already knew to tie a big net over our small tree to thwart squirrels. I harvested several buckets full of delicious beautiful apples, our best haul yet. I was also dressed like you...in the second photo, although in my imagination it is always more like the first.
Karen
Thinning the apples is sad and terrifying! But it's a necessary evil. Like pap smears. ~ karen!
Angela
Karen, I do feel your pain. We have two ginormous apple trees in our back yard, and I truly harvested only one apple. Because squirrels. They ate hundreds of them. On the upside, we did have front row seats to the circle of life: the half-eaten apples the squirrels scattered attracted fruit flies, which attracted bats, which drew in an amazingly huge owl as well as all other manner of birds. It's how I learned the beautiful bluejay is somewhat of an a-hole. LOL.
Karen
Blue Jays are total a-holes. ~ karen!
Marilyn Meagher
Beautiful apples karen, enjoy every single one. Had I known I could blame it on the squirrels I would have raided your front yard myself ! Lol
p
Nobody said "espalier" and it's my favorite word ever. I just had to type it!
Those apples are gorgeous!!
I'm thinking of some kind of fall recipe involving a squirrel stew with baked Jonagolds...
Cathy Reeves
When I bought my house 25+ yrs ago there was an apple tree in back. They were always diseased but squirrels would take a bite and toss ‘em. While sitting at my patio table one evening, one of those rodents lobbed not 1 but 2 right past my head missing my ear by inches. I swear he said “keep your rotten fruit, ya miserable animal!” before escaping up the tree.
I replaced that tree with an ornamental apple whose gorgeous blooms smell somewhat like rotten fruit.
Ann Roberts
Next year try leaving those plastic bags on. I live way further south than you do, and in a much warmer climate. I still leave them on all year and they turn out fine. No scald. No nothing. I think they tend to look a bit rough in the bags during the heat and humidity, but time to harvest and they are perfect. My bags weren't even ventitilated. I just clipped a tiny bit off the bottom corners before I bagged the apples, just to let moisture drain.
If I didn't bag apples, I would never get a single one. Squirrels would not be the problem. Every single type of apple pest would be
Karen
Hey Ann! I bagged them last year and it worked perfectly. This year, definitely not. :/ Don't forget that just because it's Canada doesn't mean it isn't hot. This summer it regularly got over 100 degrees Fahrenheit so inside those bags it would have been "just add butter and cinnamon" hot. They were literally baked apples. Next year I'll probably use mesh bags or even clay (which is a HUGE pain). ~ karen!
Jody
Bastard squirrels
Carol
I'm with you on this. Have watched my crops of prunes and figs be trashed by squirrels for the last few years. However, this year, the family of scrub jays that took over the backyard seemed to drive out the squirrels, so I actually had a bumper crop of fresh prunes and figs! I'm not much crazier about scrub jays than squirrels, they are SO noisy, but at least they tend to leave the fruit alone. Good choice on Jonagolds. They are my fave apple.
Susan
I had much the same problem with tomatoes and squirrels one summer, which led to installation of a fully covered PVC and netting vegetable garden. Worked great until the chipmunks found a way to burrow in. We nick-named them the chip-pigs. One or two bites of everything!
Joyce
Squirrels and bugs got all the good apples this year. It is damned hard to cut up the wizened survivors but we had a cobbler. Next year we bag!
This is our first year on the farmette. So much to learn and do...
Heather
Well done! Just having espaliered an apple tree to your front porch is impressive. Looking forward to seeing the apple picking dress! : )
Amy
Karen, Karen, Karen.
First, you say only a single apple, and then you reveal there were actually 11. Don't be discouraged! 11 is 11 TIMES 1! Think of the bounty of 11!
Thanks for keeping us always amused, and sometimes snort-outloud-laughing!
Amy
judy
Judy at almost 4 am why oh why can't I sleep?
Paula
This year was my first true harvest as well. I used the little gift bags to cover mine so they could breath, I tried the plastic last year but I found (as you did) that they don't seem to be the best option. I picked 9 apples and they weren't perfect - perhaps I should have tied the baggie a little tighter? Sometimes the baggie sat right against the edge of the apple and that is where the marks were, so clearly whatever it was, managed to access the apple through the fabric.
I will do what is always done in gardening...try again next year!
judy
Those are very pretty apples and so is the apple lady. I wonder about the genetics of humans like you and Virginia Elizabeth Barnes and her husband Paul. You have genius and energy and organizational skills beyond believing. I admire all of you and wish...nope at 78 I am not going to transmogrify into The little engine that could. I will read you and then take a nice nap cause I will be exhausted.
elaine abshire
I'm with you, Judy. Too much of even a good thing sends me to the couch.
Toby Fouks
Karen, how did I ever get to be this ripe old age without discovering your hilarious blogs until now? The writing is terrific and the images to drool over. I planted grape vines along the side of a garage when I first moved to Salt Spring almost 20 years ago. I had had the other three sides of the garden fenced because I knew it would be a waste of time to try to grow anything with marauding herds of deer everywhere. In the second year there were grapes aplent. I had had a frame built out from the garage above them from which leevalley tools netting was hung to prevent bird incursions. I recall the day I stood back, told myself that I would pick the grapes the next day. Ah, innocence. When I returned the next day there was -- and I am not exaggerating -- one small bunch of grapes where there had been gazillions. No one had told me that there were raccoons on the island and that they love grapes. I had never seen a raccoon here, still haven't. I no longer have the grapevines -- I advertised them locally and people came for them. I now grow items for cutworms and some years, rabbits.
Karen
Ha!!! Well that's ambitious of you. Perhaps next year you could add cabbage moths to the list of pests you raise. ~ karen!
Kipper
Beautiful apples! I grew my first pumpkin this year. It is now on the dining table. Nine year old kid next door wanted to carve it😳. I said “You cannot carve Penelope, I’m very proud of her”. I was totally unaware at the time that I was petting the pumpkin. Very embarrassed when kid yelled at her brother and told him not only was I petting the pumpkin, I’d named it and wouldn’t let her carve it. Brother is a few years older than sister and he just laughed. Penelope will be a feast for the hens after Halloween.
Hazel
We were eating dinner last night and my daughter asked if I'd cooked Susannah? Erm, sorry?! She'd named our squashes and I'd roasted Susannah. Apparently that was ok but I'm not allowed to do the same thing with Geraldine...
Amanda
Karen I’ve been following you for a couple of months now and I just have to tell you how much I enjoy your adventures and misadventures. As the reluctant but supportive wife of a do-it-yourselfer I can relate to so many of the situations you find yourself in and I grimace with empathy but smile at your tenacity and can do attitude. Keep up the great work!
Karen
Thanks Amanda. I grimace at my misadventures too, lol. ~ karen!
Tina
Quality over quantity! You have 11 apples (well, 9 now) because you wanted exceptional apples! If you didn’t care about the quality, you could have had hundreds.
PS. The first pic of fantasy you is amazing! Really beautiful!
Karen
Thanks Tina. :) Everything is better in my imaginary world. ~ karen!
Robert
Those are some really cute apples and so is the first 3 pictures
Karen
Down to 8 of them now! ~ karen
Lynn
Karen you may have only harvested 11 apples but they are beautiful apples 🍎. I am sure the squirrels much appreciated your apples 🍎 as they sure harvested enough of them to make their own little apples tarts.