"Getting rid of everything that doesn’t matter allows you to remember who you are. Simplicity doesn’t change who you are, it brings you back to who you are."

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Aww...They Call Them Fruitlets

I posed the question in my last post if I should "thin" the apple clusters that we have starting.

Mama Pea pointed out that -


"I've read you should thin your apple clusters to the two strongest looking apples. I'll admit that doesn't always get done on our trees (ahem) but you will really get much bigger apples if you do it. And since most of our apples get made into applesauce, I always ask myself if I'd rather peel and core five small apples . . . or two big ones?"


This makes sense to me too.  I'd rather have fewer, larger fruit than ton's of idde bitties.




So I Googled it and came across a few articles about thinning apples.  I just love how they call them fruitlets.

Sounds like candy @:)

I found this video too for those of you who'd like a visual.  His apples are much larger than mine are now.  I might wait a week or two before I do this to see how they form up.  Plus, I've never sprayed.  Do any of you use a preventative spray when you have a crop forming?     

I also scrolled down in the comment section and saw that he says it takes about 5-6 years for fruit trees to really be mature.  I guess we're ahead of the game a bit as this is only year Four.

In other news, the strawberries are starting to ripen.  We're hoping to start thinning those fruitlets in a day or two.

Today has a chance of rain in the forecast but the long range shows a dry week ahead so I'm hoping to spend this weekend getting the rest of the garden weeded and planted.

I expect that ya'll will be out doing the same.  Enjoy the day and don't get sunburned!

6 comments:

  1. Why not try an experiment and reduce the apple clusters on one side of the tree down to two, and leave them as clusters on the other.

    When we purchased our apple trees they had some apples on - in varying sizes. RMan didn't want to remove them, even though I advised him to. He picked one small apple a while later, and left the other two of the cluster. Then he picked another one. The final one grew some more, but wasn't massive.

    Would be interesting to see the result of cluster pruning and non-cluster pruning... :)

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  2. I like Dani's idea. It's always fun to experiment. Then we can learn what to do when we have our own apple trees!

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  3. Thanks for the link to the video(s). That guy seems to really know what he's doing. I got involved in his other videos and thought the ones on pruning were very informative. (Gosh, there sure is a lot to learn on a lot of topics, isn't there?)

    I now know that we can prune our "fuitlets" much more vigorously than I thought!

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  4. Oh I love 'fruitlets' too :-) Sounds so winnie the pooh hundred acre woodish, lol. Our producing fruit trees are very old. So the apples/pear are 'iffy' from them. The new ~ very young and not yet producing (in fact had some young apple tree die off last year for no obvious reason). So I'll have to try the fruitlet pruning on the old trees to see what happens. I've never actually done it so it will be interesting....

    As for spraying I avoid it strenously - the more I learn about chemicals/spraying the more concerned I become. As with all things there's little I say 'never ever' about. But I stretch a long way to avoid chemicals period. Even flowerbed fertilizer is a la nature (compost manure).

    The apples and few pears that are edible still from the old orchard are NOT pretty (being unsprayed) for sure - but I'm happier using them in the kitchen!

    Issy

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  5. Ugh! I JUST started allowing myself to thin my seedlings and now you tell me I'm supposed to be KILLING those teeny-tiny baby apple fruitlets!!

    I don't know if I can do it.

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  6. Thanks for the info. We don't spray and never heard of this. Sounds like the plan since I make sauce too! Or pies :) Nancy @ Little Homestead in Boise

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