Fruit Harvest from season to season

[applestar]

Post about fruits harvested from your garden -- big or small -- and comment with tips, tricks, useful ideas, problems and issues.

It's a great feeling even when it's one or two berries or a handful or a huge basketful. That's how I get started, and have been adding and growing more plants, different varieties and different kinds of fruits until I think I have fruits coming in during most of the growing season.

..but I still can't imagine a harvest that would mean needing to make juices or jars of preserves.

[applestar]

Yesterday's harvest was mostly about fruits

- Red Prelude raspberries -- I've been harvesting most of the biggest trusses every day, but some of the younger plants are starting to ripen later developing fruits so more will trickle in. Yellow Ann canes are not growing as vigorously, so only a few each day, and a lone surviving peach colored Kiwi plant has popped up on the front yard side of the fence ...fortunately inside the fenced Front Yard Fence Row garden bed. Hoping to get that one to start a new patch.

(I have yet to save any for later -- DDs eat them all by the end of the day -- so I need my raspberry patches to grow bigger and produce more.)

- More Petit Negra container fig -- between DD2 and DH, I hardly ever get to eat any but I think I counted around 40 fruits on the tree, and Chicago Hardy in-ground fig has only ripened one fruit so far out of 2-3 dozen.

- Prok persimmon are starting to ripen -- this is the third fruit to come in and DD2 has "discovered" she really likes it

- I lost one Seckle pear to some kind of burrowing worm (not found inside). Bummed since there were only 3 of these -- first time to harvest. Other two fruit as well as the rather undersized Magness pear came off when lift tested.

- I have been finding apples on the ground -- just one or two every day and usually something wrong with them, twice with chew marks. Also have been intentionally harvesting damaged not-quite-ripe fruits to salvage before the spoilage set in. But lift-tested all the fruits yesterday and all of these came off the branches easily. (Have you noticed that with MOST fruits, that's the best test for ripeness?)

Semi dwarf Enterprise is more prone to brown rot problems and other issues like high Cedar-Apple Rust pressure from neighbor's trees though it is super resistant and can handle it without help from me... but maybe reasons for typically smaller fruits than the espaliered Arkansas Black. Both get Sooty Blotch and Fly Speck fungus (which are cosmetic and only on the skin surface) so they need to be scrubbed. Sooty comes off easily from both fruits but Speck is harder to get off the matte AB fruits compared to the glossy Enterprise.

(DD1 has been tasked with salvaging the damaged apples by cutting up and removing inedible parts, then salt water soaking, and putting away the edible pieces in the fridge for immediate consumption. She tells me she fills a quart bag every day but by next day, most of the pieces are gone from the two DD's snacking on them.

It makes me feel good to know my kids have been eating fruits from our garden every day from the steady, uninterrupted seasonal fruit harvest since probably strawberries in late May

[JONA]

I would add a couple of tips for those who have a heavy crop of apples this season.
This is only for long storage type apples and not for the early varieties which will not store regardless of how you treat them.

First it is better if you pick the crop in three stages. Stage one is a third of the crop before they are anywhere near ready to eat....a week later a further third...the rest pick when they are fully ripe and ready to eat. This way You can have your crop storing over a much longer period.
How do you know when to start?
Get a small bottle of Iodine.
As you get near to harvest take a sample fruit from the outside of the tree where it will be the ripest. Cut the fruit in half and dip the cut surface in a small saucer of the iodine. Leave to dry for a couple of minutes.
If the surface remains black all over the fruit is not ripe enough to harvest. If the fruit shows a white circle starting to form from the core outward this is a sign that the starch in the fruit is turning to sugar. Once the circle is as around a third of the surface area the fruit can be harvested and will continue to ripen in storage without shrivelling. If more than 75% of the surface turns white then the fruit is too ripe to expect long storage.
Commercial growers use this simple test along with more complicated ones when deciding when to start harvesting their storable apples.
Apples picked fully ripe will never store very long

By the way....a super place to store apples is in an old freezer. NOT SWITCHED ON OF COURSE.
it's safe from vermin....and providing you close it after a cold night so the fruits are nice and cool, they will stay that way for far longer. Also it acts as a sort of controlled atmosphere store as well as the fruit will naturally lower the oxygen levels in the near airtight freezer.

[applestar]

JONA, thank you for those extremely helpful tips.

[CharlieBear]

I would add if you have a bumper crop of apples you can lengthen their storage in the crisper (assuming you don't have some sort of root cellar set up like an old freezer), the problem is only apples in that crisper. This will even lengthen the time you can keep things like Golden Cox Pippen, which last far less time then I would like.
For European pears of the storing varieties that are usually cold storaged and then put out to ripen- you can hold the fruit so the stem is at a right angle to the branch, if it comes off very easily or falls off in your hand it is time to take if off the tree and place in cold storage. The angle test also works for all pears, I use it on the Asians as well (I learned it from an elderly grower).
You might also consider dehydrating your fruit. I have dehydrated several hundred pounds of fruit this year, starting with strawberries. A lot of fruit dehydrates well, but many don't dry very well. I have even dehydrated raspberries this year and Asian Pears (dehydrated fruit keeps a long time, takes up less room and is free of the sulfur store dried fruits have). I store Asian Pears wrapped in the brown paper bags I had around them for bug control and place carefully in a crisper. They keep for several months that way. (yes I have more than on refrigerator).
If you espalier you trees, you might check out the use of brown paper lunch bags over each apple. I do and almost all of my apples are good, once in a while a bug still gets in by the stem where it is stapled. If you are interested, private message me and I will give you the complete instructions.
We have 5 fig trees, Nigronie is our favorite. I keep hearing people say they have petite Nigra, I assume it is near black. Is the tree smaller or are the figs small? I dry all but the white fig after slicing in 1/4" slices. I have also dried the first seedless grapes to ripen of the 12 varieties of grapes we have. We fill one freezer with berries (raspberries, black, blue) every year and make jam, dehydrate or give away the rest. We have apples, pears, asian pears, persimmon, quince, cherries, peaches, nectarines, berries, grapes, rhubarb, figs ... no apricots, they don't generally set here and they are too disease prone, I know I lost 3 of them to the neighbors, cedars.

[imafan26]

Longan trees are bearing now

Mangoes are starting to flush

I am still waiting on the main citrus crop of lemons and tangerines. They are late this year.

[sweetiepie]

My two year old grapes (two plants) produced enough grapes to make 11 jelly jars of jam. Not too bad considering I thought the snow and ice killed them around Memorial Day.

[!potatoes!]

we moved away from a number of fruit trees this spring when we bought our farm, so it's been a little light this year. been putting a lot fruit trees and bushes in he ground, but only harvesting what was already here - earlier there were mulberries, blackcaps, and wineberries (actually got ~2 gallons of wineberries frozen)...and now the first of our wild persimmons are just starting to fall. that'll be it this year.

[applestar]

More photos of the Prok persimmon. I have one espaliered tree. It is self fruitful. The fruits are about 2 inches diameter.

I like that the espaliered branches are within easy reach. I pick them when they are actually soft and "gives" and easily twist off the branch with or without the calyx., then keep at room temperature wrapped in paper towels or napkins. They are better eating one or two days later when they are soft with consistency of soft apricots. By third day, they will start to liquefy and turn into jam like consistency inside the skin. Though still good, I think they actually start to lose their peak sweetness at this point.

[Sweyn]

This is a good idea for a thread. It could be made sticky.

You have a great variety of fruits which all look good.

Apples and pears could be made into cider. Apples could also be chopped and dried to keep them for longer, or, processed at home in order to extract the pectin in them. Pectin is needed to make jam with any fruit.

[Sweyn]

I've found that a very small number of Blackberries are either ripe now, or, still not ripe! Strange.

Someone else's garden that I visited still had a few Red Mulberries worth picking, even at this time of year. They were not very big but still tasted good.

[applestar]

Surprised about the blackberries and mulberries. Maybe come confused blossoms opened due to weather anomalies? I'm still getting trickling harvest of raspberries and the White Soul alpine strawberries, though. (I've potted up some of the leftover alpine strawberry seedling plants and am planning to bring some inside to see if they will yield any fruits in the Winter Indoor Garden. )

I wanted to show these apples after just about completely turning red. I have two apples left on each of the trees and one last persimmon. I'm not sure if the few (maybe 8?) hard small Petit Nigra figs will be ripening any more since it's getting really cool/cold now -- it's almost time to bring it inside. They will ripen later on in the house or else next spring as long as they are not hit by frost/freeze, I think. That's what happened before. Chicago Hardy figs have been ripening, and the fruits that were tiny at first have been getting a bit more respectable:

Subject: Applestar's 2015 Garden

With heavy rains in the forecast, I took these photos of the side yard garden before harvesting all of the blushed to fully colored tomatoes and the red ripe apples.

{Espalier Fence Row, "Haybale" Row, "Sunflower House" and SFHX (Sunflower House Extension), Spiral Garden and SGAX (Spiral Garden Annex)}

image.jpg

Today's Harvest

[JONA]

https://imageshack.us/a/img631/2522/fXWZ4X.jpg

Over 100 varieties at West Dean Apple day.

[applestar]

That looks like a FUN event!

[Sweyn]

Surprised about the blackberries and mulberries. Maybe come confused blossoms opened due to weather anomalies?

The weather was unusually warm at that time. Like a mild, summer day. It increased the rate at which fruits ripened.

[imafan26]

Finally getting the first of the satsuma mandarins. They are late this year.

[Taiji]

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apples 2015.JPG (68.98 KiB) Viewed 12989 times

Getting apples now from the old inherited apple tree on a new property. That's the tree with the sapsucker riddled trunk. It was loaded with apples this year, maybe overloaded. But, just didn't have time to get in there and thin.

About 90 % of the apples have worms (coddling moth larvae?) So I take shallow bites of course I noticed in general the better apples are the ones that are laying on the ground.

If I pick one off that looks ripe, often it is not as good. The ones on the ground have mostly been knocked off by the birds, and have some pecking marks on there, but they leave quite a bit for me! The birds are really smart and the ones they sample are the sweetest ones! The redder the better.

I don't suppose it's possible to look at an apple and know what kind it is?

[JONA]

Codling has been bad this year over here as well Taiji.
Put a pheromone trap in the garden in early summer. They should get most of the males in the area. Then there would be a lot less fertilised females around.
Fruit that has been damaged will always be the ripest. It's the trees way of getting rid of such fruit as the pips may be damaged as well. Once any Apple has suffered a wound a chemical. ( ethylene) is released in the fruit so that The tree is persuaded that the pips are fully developed, so the fruit ripens and is dropped so no energy is wasted on imperfect fertility. Our pickets always go for the bird pecked fruit for instant eating.

[Taiji]

That's good advice, thank you. I will try the traps for sure. Is that what dormant oil spray is used for too? Moths? Does that work?

I forgot to mention that around here, (they say) we only have a decent fruit year once every 5 to 7 years, because everything is killed by late frosts. We always have the early warm up, then frost. But, maybe in this location, hopefully that won't happen!

[JONA]

That's good advice, thank you. I will try the traps for sure. Is that what dormant oil spray is used for too? Moths? Does that work?

I forgot to mention that around here, (they say) we only have a decent fruit year once every 5 to 7 years, because everything is killed by late frosts. We always have the early warm up, then frost. But, maybe in this location, hopefully that won't happen!

Oil sprays are used to ' clean up ' the trees in the winter months of any lavae and eggs of summer pests.
Snag is they also control the ' goodies ' as well. Over here winter washes are not used by growers because of this.
Codling would not be controlled anyway, as like Totrix moths they do not seem to hibernate In the orchards.

[applestar]

I brought in a handful of raspberries when we had hard frost and freeze ...was it two weeks ago?... And told my DD's, "These are the LAST raspberries for the season." -- Since then, I think I've brought in another handful of berries at least three or four times, saying "THESE are the last berries...."

[HoneyBerry]

Your sapsucker damage looks similar to the damage that was done to the trunk & branches of my lilac tree, which I thought was from a borer. Now I wonder if my lilac damage could be from a woodpecker rather than from a borer. Occasionally, I have seen a woodpecker pecking on my lilac. The woodpecker has some red on its head. Damage from a woodpecker seems like it wouldn't be as bad as damage from a borer, but I don't know for sure.

[Taiji]

I actually saw a woodpecker on the same tree a couple of days ago; I heard him tapping first. I picked up an apple off the ground and threw it up there; all he did was move around the trunk out of sight! I just don't have time to control them right now.

[applestar]

I suppose SAPsuckers might be different, but what I get on my fruit trees are chickadees, nuthatches, titmouses (titmice?), and downy woodpeckers. largest being hairy woodpeckers. All of them closely inspect and remove bugs, eggs, and larvae from the surface, crevices, and under loose bark -- and are welcome members of the Garden Patrol.

Gold and house finches, warblers and kinglets also join the fray when the aphids and other presumably newly hatching bugs are thickest in spring. The non-resident migrants also seem to pass through during the fall as well.

...

I'm actually harvesting some white alpine strawberries since I planted some in containers and brought them into the Garage V8 Nursery

[HoneyBerry]

I think my woodpecker is a good thing but I don't know why he would like my lilac tree. I don't think it would taste as good as an apple tree or maple tree. Perhaps he is after the ants. If my damage is from a woodpecker then I am somewhat relieved. I was worried when I thought the damage was from a borer fly. I don't have time to deal with it so I have to let nature take its course.

[imafan26]

I am getting bilimbi now. I am giving most of it away. I don't really like it. I am doing the annual topping of the tree. It gets very big in one year. I mostly keep it for the shade it provides and a place to hang the orchids although a branch did go through my orchid basket and I don't think I can save the basket. The Meyer lemon has small lemons on it which is amazing since the trees have been covered with vines most of the time. Calamondin has fruit nearly year round. I did harvest my daikon and I have a few left. I have to pull the basil, downy mildew has started again. They were looking good for a long time.

[Taiji]

Just a little update on something I learned recently thanks to JONA! Previously almost every apple I would pick up off the ground would have the codling moth larvae inside. But, now that I'm picking apples off the tree, (with the pending cold weather) I'm finding few with moth damage. I realize now that the tree spews off the damaged fruit first as JONA said, because why waste energy on seeds that the tree thinks are finished. So, it's nice to eat some fruit now without fear. (well, I don't wanna get too cocky of course, I still look after each bite)

[JONA]

The old saying still goes.........there's only one thing worse than finding a maggot in the apple your eating..finding half of one!

[Taiji]

And I don't eat them in the dark either!

[applestar]

I'm still harvesting the White Soul alpine strawberries -- only one or two once or twice a week, but I brought the 3 gal container of another plant that was out on the patio inside -- and it currently has about a dozen berries at various stages -- so we will have more in addition to the two garage plants, soon.

My DD says that we have to wait until the berries are absolutely ripe, and refused to pick more than three from the ones in the garage yesterday. She is right that at that stage, they are scrumptiously and mouthwateringly sweet with delightful fragrance and full strawberry flavor. They also get soft and mushy in hours from picking. So not at all market-able and you'll never see them at a store. We gave the three berries to my parents yesterday when we went to visit.

As you might imagine, my elderly parents were very skeptical of these tiny "strawberries" that were ivory white with greenish cast to them from the seeds, and they wouldn't touch them until I MADE them eat them. But it was totally worth seeing their eyes light up with surprise and pleasure.

[applestar]

The Strawberries are coming! The Strawberries are coming!

[MichaelC]

I would add a couple of tips for those who have a heavy crop of apples this season.
This is only for long storage type apples and not for the early varieties which will not store regardless of how you treat them...

I'm glad this old thread turned up. JONA, that is priceless information, thank you.

I'm mostly posting as a place marker to remember to post later about my fruit tress.

[applestar]

Yep that was a REALLY great apple storage technique tip from JONA

-- maybe we could also post how we process our harvest to keep longer fresh, and what we typically do when we have extra harvest to put up for long term.

[MichaelC]

I was referring to the information regarding timing the harvest, but yes, the storage info is great. We don't get quite enough from our two trees (maybe 5-10 gallons?) to bother much with storage, though. The bulk of it gets eaten, given away, or baked into something within a few weeks. We also don't have a problem with vermin in our garage, thankfully. If we did, I'd send our intrepid and able feline killer in there!

[Lindsaylew82]

My family really likes homemade apple sauce and apple butter. I make it, then pressure can it. We unfortunately don't have apple trees... That needs remedied, ASAP!

I looked and looked for a fig and orange jam recipe for years, finally found one that I altered to be exactly how I like it! It's made with dehydrated black figs I have 4 new dwarf fig trees this year, and I hope to get enough figs to make the jam from my own garden!

I've thought about making a tomato and onion savory jam this year.

We make peach peach BBQ sauce and peach chutney every year and can it as well! Last year we got NO peaches due to a late hard freeze. This year we have lots of peaches, but I believe our plums are lost to curculio beetles.

[applestar]

Re-cap strawberries so far. In the last two photos, those were morning and afternoon harvests today -- a respectable amount for DDs' daily snacking -- they are starting not to be able to finish all in one day, and have starting freezing left overs. Pretty soon, I'll be able to eat as much as I want as well and still have enough to freeze for smoothies, etc. later.



I've netted the Spiral Garden Inner Spiral of Seascape strawberries.




...and the raspberries are getting ready thanks to all the bumblebee activity among the flowers

[applestar]

Strawberries still going strong, though the patch of Wild Strawberries that produced first are declining. They are down to what I call "bird sized" -- almost not worth the effort to harvest. Due to different microclimates, other patches are just starting and I probably need to move the Birdscares to protect those and let the bird sized ones go to the birds. The big Seascape berries protected with the VIP netting have been trickling in




I'm not sure what's different, but the Triple Crown thornless blackberries are blooming like mad this year

[applestar]

First of the raspberries (Prelude) have trickled in along with a few more cherries (White Gold) to join today's strawberries



BIrdscares are on HIGH ALERT


-- hoping that the soaker hose snake will help to deter the birds, too

[Lindsaylew82]

Peaches are blushing! Pulling off several from brown rot or bug holes. I won't be eating these without paying close attention. I'm not sure when I'm supposed to pick them off. They smell like nothing, and they're still very hard. But I may ACTUALLY get at least a few this year!




Nectarines are still fuzzy and tiny and not growing. I'm starting to think the graft on this died off, and this is rootstock fruit.

[imafan26]

I wish we could get apples, peaches and plums here, but unfortunately for most of us we can only get it at the market. Only low chill varieties will grow here and they are not very good.