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

Who's got the apple?

Apple tree prop

Last year, we ate one apple off the small branch of William's Pride I grafted onto a Virginia Beauty tree in February 2013. There would have been two...but a deer walked through the garden and stole the second fruit (eating almost nothing else!) in a move reminiscent of one of the most memorable books I had as a child.

This year, there are so many apples on that one small limb that I had to prop it up on a log to keep it from bending to the ground. With a solid month to go before the fruits are due to ripen, I'll have to keep an eye on our borders and hope the deer don't make a reappearance.



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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.



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Are you going to fence off the deer so they don't get all the apples this year? You may have to!
Comment by Eric Sun Jun 11 12:00:46 2017
We planted apple trees last year and the deer started nibbling on the trees almost immediately. Since we didn't have the money to fence, we put up 6 foot metal posts and strung fishing line around them. We did a low, medium and high line and then put bright survey tape flags long enough to flutter in the breeze. We've had to repair the line a couple times but so far, it's kept the deer away from the trees. Good luck with your apples!
Comment by Mary Mon Jun 12 07:10:33 2017





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