The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Not June drops after all

June applesIt occurred me to me as elf-sized Early Transparent apples kept dropping from the tree and I kept happily gnawing them up that perhaps those weren't June drops after all. Perhaps they were merely apples ripening early and small.

For the sake of comparison, I'm showing two apples of the same variety from our less-high-density dwarf tree beside one of the "June drops." The former are bigger and greener, making it more obvious that the elfin apple is actually almost a little over-ripe. (The mealy texture of the last few picked off the ground proved the same point.)

So my new conclusion is that I didn't thin the flowers on that high-density Early Transparent enough. It probably could have used some manure too, but the neighboring high-density Red Empire is bulking up its (fewer) fruits much more gamely, pointing to a variety-specific thinning problem.

Next year, I'll thin harder. But this year, I'm enjoying eating my mistakes.



Anna Hess's books
Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.


Great about your little apples! Sourish? How many are lef on the tree?
Comment by adrianne Sat Jul 2 11:02:00 2016
Hi Anna! I happen to have an old Transparent apple tree on the farm that I have been leasing. I too was surprised when this apple tree began dropping apples in July/August (here in Maine), but word at the farmers' market is that this is an heirloom variety that actually is intended to ripen in the summertime. It makes sense to me that some of those characteristics would have carried over into your dwarf-variety. Thanks for sharing your stories; I really enjoy your writing.
Comment by Samantha Burns Mon Aug 8 07:03:39 2016





profile counter myspace



Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.

Required disclosures:

As an Amazon Associate, I earn a few pennies every time you buy something using one of my affiliate links. Don't worry, though --- I only recommend products I thoroughly stand behind!

Also, this site has Google ads on it. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to a website. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to various sites. You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting this site.