Last year I showed you photo after photo of beautiful apples that were all picked from our trees here on Apple Hill.
It was such an amazing surprise because we just didn’t expect such beautiful apples from totally neglected trees.
Turns out, maybe neglect was the answer.
This past winter, we pruned the trees.
This past spring, we fertilized the trees.
And it rained.
And it rained.
And it rained.
And this year, this is what our apples look like.
Mildewed. Mutants. Miniscule.
My grandfather, Pa, would have said disgustedly, “Aagh, they’re just little bits a’nuthin’.”
I have such a vivid picture in my mind of him saying this, that he must have said it frequently. Although, I would guess he was talking about the peaches. Peaches are much more finicky than apples. AND he sprayed his apples. (And lived to the ripe old age of 98, despite being constantly around chemical spray, DDT, and other toxic poisons of the fifties and sixties. Plus, he spread butter on his potato chips and used the salt shaker for every piece of food on his well-filled plate!)
Yes, we know about dormant oil spray…Maybe next year we’ll try it.
But this year, we’ll be buying our apples…
the circle of life 
That is really funny about your grandfather. Mom had a heavy hand with the salt shaker and salted her watermelon. She used all those sprays ( always poo pooed organic) and got multiple myeloma. It is very tricky growing fruit. Last year was a particularly good year for apples.
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Must have been! If they hadn’t been so beautiful last year, we wouldn’t be disappointed. Because this is about what we expected them to look like last year!
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Where are you? We’re in So Cal and our local apple growers are harvesting big and early. Isn’t that weird? We had no rain. Maybe that’s the key…
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Interesting. We are in southwestern PA, almost in West Virginia. Last summer was gorgeous with rain sometimes, but not overwhelming. My thoughts are that apples like rain while the fruit is being set, and then not so much that they will mildew and get scabs. But we are totally just amateurs. I have read articles on apple growing that say organic apple growing in the East is almost impossible because of the climate and pests. It is much more feasible in the west. I dunno…
Enjoy your big early apples! :-)
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That is interesting. Our apples grow at an elevation where there’s not many pests of any kind.
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