Timing of apple picking, variety Sunset

A further illustrated lesson on picking apples at the right time. If you pick too early, flavour and colour will not be fully developed. If you leave it too late, apart from bird and wasp damage, the wind may blow them off and although you can pick up the fallers and wash and cook or make cider with them, they won't store and you can't ethically sell them except as windfalls for a greatly reduced price.

Each apple has its own season. Our early varieties are long gone, we are picking our mid season varieties as they ripen (bearing in mind forecast winds), the late apples will not be picked for 2 weeks or more. Books are only a rough guide to when you should pick each variety- climate, region and season all have an influence. Colour is helpful but not always a reliable guide. we watch the trees carefully, ideally daily, when the expected season is on us and see when the apples are begining to fall. When they come off easily on being grasped and lifted, they're ready.

You get better at this judgment with experience. Best not to plan a vacation at apple picking time!

Category:

Education

Tags:

• judgment
• call
• apple
• picking
• timing
• season
• sunset
• frutiwise
• autumn
• harvest
• glory
• to
• God
• orchard

[fartyboy54]

We also lose plenty of apples from our three trees in the backyard so I am thinking of putting a mat underneath, maybe landscape fabric strung around the tree held by wood stakes and sloping down to a catch bucket. What do you think?

[stephenhayesuk]

No reason why you can't do this. Fallen apples if clean and not bruised can be used at home but you should not sell them and they are unlikely to store well.

[mcgrimes]

Thanks for another great video!

If i may say, thats a huge harvest, my apple sunset is showing lots of potential for a bumper crop next year also.

[stephenhayesuk]

Sunset is pretty reliable, and widely receommended across the range of writers, but I must be fair and say this is the best ever crop on these trees.

They were planted as tiny one year maiden trees in the winter of 1999/2000 and have yielded about 20kg per tree this year. I propagated them all myself by bud grafting to MM106 stocks.

To achieve this size they were strongly thinned in May and again in July.

[boxa888]

awesome video! i love this, i think im gonna make a orchid someday, how long does it take to get nice apple trees like that or atleast going more than 20 apples a harvest? thanks so much!

[stephenhayesuk]

These trees were planted in 1999, they were just tiny sticks with no branches then. They have been cropping well for 4 or 5 years, this year is the best yet..

You can get a few apples 2 years after planting 2 year old trees, the usual size you get from nurseries. 5 years after planting you should be getting 20 or 30 apples per tree. Its definitely worth doing, you don't have to wait that long.

[boxa888]

thanks for your great advice!

[MadBadVoodo]

Five Stars!!

[MAMEMAN1975]

THANKS