Or should I say a First Look. Last night, we were at the new house and I took a few pictures before it got dark. Apparently, the former owner loved fruit trees. According to his wife, he had all kinds planted. However, some of them must be gone because I haven't seen any peach or plum trees she said they had. Among the several that are still there, major branches have been split off but they still seem to be thriving. When we actually get moved in, we're going to start learning how to care for them. One thing I do know is that serious pruning is needed.
Here are a few things I saw this week
during a First Look.
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| There are two pear trees and one of them started blooming again last week. From what I read, this can happen when there has been bad weather during the summer that puts the tree into dormancy. When the weather gets better and it starts growing again, the tree thinks it's spring and it's coming out of its winter sleep. This is a new one for me. |
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| There are a couple of crabapple trees. This fruit is big enough to make crabapple jelly if one were so inclined. |
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| However, the crabapples on the other tree are too small (marble size) to do much with except throw at each other--which Miss Landers did during her first visit to see the new house. We grew up with a crabapple tree in our yard and she was feeling nostalgic. Good thing she doesn't have very good aim. |
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| What has me the most excited is that there are two full-size apple trees. I've eaten a few of these and they are pretty tart. I think that's because most of the ones I've tried are not quite ripe. However, they are dropping like crazy, so I'm trying to get a few before the insects totally devour them. Anyone want to take a guess of what kind they are because we have no idea. The other tree is a golden delicious, I think. The apples are totally gone from it. |
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| The picture is a little blurry, but you get an idea of what kind of damage is on some of the trees. |
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| Ornamental plum tree. I said the plum trees were gone, but that's not exactly what I meant. I meant the plum trees that produce plums you can eat are gone. |
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| A view of a couple of the trees from the house. BTW, the corner bed in the back is full of poison ivy. We're gonna have to find some one to take care of that before we start to work in it. |
Oh my goodness, what beautiful property! The fruit trees are just a bonus! And yes, make crabapple jelly__next year. You get a pass from everything this year!
ReplyDeleteIt is very pretty and that is one of the things that drew us to this house. However, I'm not used to seeing houses behind me, so that will take a little time to get used to.
DeleteThe new yard looks lovely, live and learn!
ReplyDeleteOne of our apple trees blossomed, partially, in late-summer, last year. Strange. It didn't alter this year's blooming, at all, fortunately.
Home-grown apples are so delicious! I made a fruit salad, last night, using 2 varieties of our home-grown apples, a russet and a pippin. Those apples have so much wonderful flavor. It spoils you, after a while. I hope you enjoy yours!
I"m glad to know that the extra blooming didn't throw it off its normal cycle. I love fresh apples so I'm looking forward to them. However, I'm not sure how you get to the apples before they all rot or get eaten by insects and critters. I have a lot to learn.
DeleteAn apple ready to pick should come off the tree fairly easily. Cut one open, and if the seeds are brown, it should be ripe. If the seeds are still white, it's not. Have you cut into one of the apples, yet? Some apples don't finish ripening until early October, in our area. I also think its normal for some apples to fall each year.
DeleteIf yours are still too tart, you can always use them to make apple sauce.
If you want to store the apples in the fridge, you'll need to pick them, and not wait for them to fall.
Some years, our trees overbear, and many apples fall early. Keep the fallen apples cleaned up, on a regular basis. Some of them, you can probably still use right away, by cutting off bruises and bad spots. If you leave the apples on the ground for very long, they will attract al sorts of pests. Around here, the big pest is rats, if fruit is left on the ground.
Some varieties are more prone to prematurely falling, too, like Macintosh apples. Could that tree be a Macintosh?
Good luck with your new fruit trees!
Thanks for all of the advice. The seeds are brown inside the apples, but there is still green on the outside of most of them making me think they're not ripe. I'm taking a cut up apple every day to work with me. Sometimes, I get a lot of apple and sometimes I don't by the time I cut out all of the bad spots. I may have to grow to like applesauce better. While I love raw apples, applesauce is not that exciting to me. Oh well, I'll study apple recipes over the winter and hope we have a good crop next year.
DeleteAnd these could be Mackintoshes, but I remember the flesh being different on those.
Green skin? Red apples will sometimes not color-up as well, if they apples don't get enough sun exposure. So, they can be ripe, while still having some green on the skins, or the part of the apple's skin whose skin is being shielded from sun, by a thick branch of leaves. Your trees may not have been thinned in recent years, to allow a lot of sunlight into the heart of the tree.
DeleteI agree with Kris, use the chunks of good apple in baking, like crisps or cakes or pies or muffins, if you don't like applesauce.
The other thing with homegrown fruit, is bugs. Bug-damaged fruit will drop prematurely. You can spray or use traps next year.
I suspect that by the time next harvest season is over, you'll be an expert on keeping apple trees!
You keep sharing all of your knowledge, Lili, and I will be an expert in no time. These apples are definitely bug damaged and that is probably the main cause for them dropping. Also, they definitely haven't been thinned in a while. In fact, I don't think anything has been done for many years because of the failing health of the aging couple who lived there.
DeleteLovely property! The fruit trees will be a nice blessing. I'm with Anne--this year is not the year to tackle making jelly!
ReplyDeleteI prefer tart apples for baking--pies and crisps taste better, IMO, with a little more "tang".
Tart apples definitely make better pies and crisps IMO, also. I prefer a bit of tartness in my eating apples too. So many new things to explore and learn. Even though I'm still going crazy here, change is good.
DeleteLovely big backyard! How nice to have all the fruit trees, too. I have read that tart apples make good pies, etc.
ReplyDeleteWe weren't ready to go for a small yard, but needed something easier to take care of than we have now. We think this is a good compromise. We'll see how it actually works out once we live there for a while, but it has good promise.
DeleteYour yard looks very big to me (maybe it's the angle of the picture?) so although you can see houses, they're not all that close. With a few more years, you can probably grow bushes or other vegetation that will obscure the view and give you more privacy?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't recognize poison ivy if there was any. I don't think it grows in Florida. I think we have poison oak but I also don't know what it looks like and even if I did, I'd probably forget until I touched one!
Sorry I have no advice about fruit trees. I've tried growing several and they all died. But it looks like another one of your reader's got you covered anyway!
Hmm, pears. You are so lucky! I am green with envy. You're going to have lots of beautiful pictures to share with us in the future. Yay!
Our new lot is an acre in size and our old one was two acres in size with a farm behind it. So it is a pretty big lot. We'll have to live there a while to see what it is really like.
DeleteI just checked. You do have poison ivy in Florida. You must not be allergic to it or you would learn to identify it. Ward has a severe reaction to it and I definitely get it. It's really best if we can avoid it.
Well, dang it, you're right! I think I'd been told years ago that we didn't have it here and I just never checked. The first article I read educated me in the difference between poison ivy and Virginia Creeper, something that I've been pulling from my planters with my bare hands. Good thing it wasn't poison ivy. I confess that from now on, I'm going to feel a little paranoid when Greg and I take our walks and I step off the trails to take pictures of interesting plants and butterflies! This makes me nostalgic for the nettles of my youth back in France. At least I could recognize those pretty easily and they make yummy soup too!
DeleteWe have nettles here and I can't say that I'm fond of them. But then again, I never had nettle soup.
DeleteOoooo... fruit trees! I'm seething with jealousy! :-)
ReplyDeleteThey are definitely an added bonus. :)
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