I’ve failed to do a good job documenting our garden this spring already! So, back to it here. I’ll share some pictures and stuff (current) and a little history of what we added this year.
First up, the apple trees. We’ve been out with the apples a lot lately due to the caterpillar infestation. So far, we think we’re winning via hand picking, so we’re gonna hold off on spraying. We’ll see if that’s the right choice or not.
The cages, in case you’re wondering, are there to protect the trees from the deer. We certainly have a fair number of deer in our yard, and this makes it much more difficult for the dear to strip the bark from the tree, which they do, apparently. Apple bark tastes good. The cages are also the source of the random bloody spots on my legs and arms… Reaching through, over, and into them with their sharp edges to kill caterpillars is tough work.
In total, we have 6 different varieties of apples and 8 total trees. The varieties are as follows:
- Kinnard’s Choice (an apple local to Franklin, TN) x2
- Early Strawberry (funny name)
- Magnum Bonum (which means something like, “Good Good”
- Royal Limbertwig
- Blacktwig x2
- Buckingham
For my records, they’re organized like this, as looking out from the house:
KC ES MB B
KC RL BT BT
Each apple has different characteristics and different schedules. We’ve already experienced flowering and petal drop has just occurred.
And this has been the big news of the last few days… actual apples forming.
Over time, we’ll have to thin the apples back and make decisions about which ones to keep and whether we do things like spraying and bagging. But not just yet.
Posts that are still to come… plums, blueberries, brambles, and serviceberries.
We have the same problems in my apple tree too. I remove all the caterpillars and cover the tree with net that can still have there ventilation. I hope that it will work. My gooseberries are really doing great! I just harvested 2 baskets of it and made some jam out of it. Good luck on your garden.
We had a much better year on the test caterpillars this year. Starting early in the spring, we were on the lookout for the tents… When they appeared, we ATTACKED! A long stick was the key to knocking them out of the tree and stomping them on the ground.
We also cut a length of black drain pipe and put it around the base of the tree. This might have helped as well.
End result? I’m not sure I picked a single tent caterpillar off an apple tree this year… Big success.