Tag: apple

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01/05/2024 before dark

Before it got dark yesterday we did the winter (structural/shape) pruning on the fruit trees. The buds were fuzzy. (Summer pruning is supposed to be about reducing tree size for those of us who want the trees smaller.)
Everybody who’s a fruit tree in this picture got a haircut!
The dwarf peach tree mostly needed a few crossing branches in the middle removed. Otherwise it looked good.

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Williams’ Pride Apples harvest year 2

Last summer we waited too long to harvest our first Williams’ pride apple. This year as soon as they started turning red, I went reading to figure out when they ripen. We have been looking to see the background color go from green to yellow, and several sites said the apple should easily fall off the tree with a tug. This has been working well! I think at first we were tugging too gently as one apple was still rotting on the tree but all the rest have been good since.

This is the only tree I bought from Raintree nursery but I would try them again if I have to replace any trees. It has had the most enthusiastic start of all our young fruit trees. You can see there are still multiple apples left ripening plus a few more in the house.
Good job, Professor Williams! They are sweet and tart and crispy!
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04/03/2023 fruit trees before we left

Williams pride apple is blooming.
Seckel pear has started to leaf out and the Liberty apple behind it too.
I think this one is the bud on the Arkansas Black Apple. Or maybe McIntosh. I forget already. Update: Paula checked and it’s McIntosh.
Butterfly milkweed coming up in the rainbow garden!
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12/10/2022 finally turning

The greens are doing well.
Seedlings are in the raised bed but I’m not sure what they are. Hoping for field violets?
The apple trees still are mostly green but one pear tree is turning. The three pictures below of leaves turning yellow and orange are from the one pear tree in front.
Later we walked the dog at Saxon park. Lots of rabbit’s tobacco sprouting.
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11/16/2022 a previous frost

Away from the shelter of the oak tree, lots of plants are getting frost, including the wine cups we grew from seed and planted last spring.
The rosettes will stay green all winter, I believe. They show off the frost beautifully as it avoids the veins, creating a pattern of frost with greener veins.
The frost hasn’t killed the apple leaves yet either.
Another apple tree with light frost.
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08/20/2022 fruit tree check-in and pruning

I was going to trim the granny Smith back carefully to see if any life remained in the tree, but it broke right off at the base, completely dry, in my hands. So that one’s a goner. I’m not sure if it was too much water or too much heat. I don’t think it was too little water, as the soaker hose leaks prodigiously near here.
The north star pie cherry died this year and I checked the trunk- no green left. I think it was irregular watering (boo, me) and heat.
The surecrop pie cherry lost all its leaves a bit later, but I found a bit of green as I pruned back its branches. I think this winter we will move it to where the Granny Smith apple was, and then replace the soil in the corten planters and do native calcareous barrens flowers there instead.
Paula found a magnificent preying mantis and it helped us look at clouds in hope of rain.
We pruned the remaining apple and pear trees back. The first summer ones are supposed to be down to three short branches, so it’s especially sparse looking. This is supposed to help them stay small. The two remaining second-summer ones are trimmed back but more branches left in place. They’ll all get pruned again in the winter for structure and shape.
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07/22/2022 our first and only apple

We looked at the William’s pride apple tree today and the apple was missing!! Concern. We found it on the ground.
Sadly, the bottom half was rotted. I forgot that William’s pride is an early variety, so we should have picked sooner before it fell.
However, we cut off the bad part and the rest was quite delicious! A nice texture and magnificent smell!!
Gram was less impressed than we were.
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07/17/2022 straw bale sampling and other afternoon torture

We appear to have some potatoes in the straw bales.
The Granny Smith apple is having a hard time. The leaves are turning brittle and possibly sunscalded? We are on mandatory water conservation until the city pump is fixed Monday hopefully so the most I can do is hand water it. However, this apple tree is the most westward facing so maybe it’s just having problems.
Native Texas dandelion in backyard earlier.
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07/10/2022 purple

Paula tried one of our Purple Beauty Peppers and found it to be not very sweet, more green bell pepper taste still, and after looking online I think I picked them too early. Needs to be fully, deeply purple. I was worried about sunscald though (see the big tan area on the top one). They’ll still be good to use though.
The William’s Pride apple continues to get a flush of red. It’s hot out, me too!
I thought this grasshopper was really pretty. Not sure I’ve seen one like it before. We have lots of predator insects and birds in the yard so a few grasshoppers are no harm and lots of food for our other wild friends!
Zucchini begins.