{"id":10986,"date":"2012-08-14T18:57:39","date_gmt":"2012-08-15T01:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=10986"},"modified":"2012-08-14T18:57:39","modified_gmt":"2012-08-15T01:57:39","slug":"hey-you-friendly-orchardists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/14\/hey-you-friendly-orchardists\/","title":{"rendered":"Hey, you friendly orchardists"},"content":{"rendered":"

… or even you people who are reasonably competent at growing things, some advice, please.<\/p>\n

I bought my house two years ago (this Thursday). It has an apple tree in the back yard that’s very likely 100 years old and that has had no attention in decades.<\/p>\n

First year, it produced one — count ’em, one — apple.<\/p>\n

Last year, zero apples.<\/p>\n

Just when I was about to ask somebody to take it down, this summer it went apple crazy. From where I sit under the tree (or where I used to sit under it before it started getting dangerous) I can probably see seven or eight dozen, and that’s less than half of what’s up there. I even went out and got one of those fruit plucker dealy-bobs<\/a> to harvest them.<\/p>\n

Questions is: When?<\/p>\n

I have no idea what variety this is. So far, the apples are green with only a faint pink blush on one side. My (scant) knowledge says that these old varieties were either all green, firm, and tart or all red, sweet, and mushy. So I’m thinking green and blushy isn’t ripe.<\/p>\n

However, a couple have already fallen. Which is supposed to mean they’re getting close, right? Yet when I salvaged the fallen ones from the dogs’ jaws today and cut out a non-slobbered-upon slice, it was super-tart, beyond Granny Smith territory. I like tart, but this was too puckery even for me.<\/p>\n

So do I wait and see? Let them thud down upon the deck and into canine maws en masse<\/i> before I assume ripeness? Try my plucker gadget and see how willingly the apples detach from the tree? Or what?<\/p>\n

Help me, oh you more-competent-than-I folk. Mother&^%$$# Nature and I do not communicate well.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

ADDED: naturegirl asked for pictures. Not sure how much these will help, but here you go …<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… or even you people who are reasonably competent at growing things, some advice, please. I bought my house two years ago (this Thursday). It has an apple tree in the back yard that’s very likely 100 years old and that has had no attention in decades. First year, it produced one — count ’em, one — apple. Last year, zero apples. Just when I was about to ask somebody to take it down, this summer it went apple crazy. From where I sit under the tree (or where I used to sit under it before it started getting dangerous)…<\/p>\n

Continue readingHey, you friendly orchardists<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gardening-heaven-forbid","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}