When last we spoke, I was showing you my apple vignette on my kitchen table.
All is not ap-peeling in the apple world though.
My "job" every week is to pick up all the crabapples before my husband mows that part of the yard. I hate this "job".
I use quotes because I've yet to see any "money" from this "job".
Now, I don't want you to think I'm a crabapple hater. I mean, the blooms in the spring are drop dead GORGEOUS.
But the apples are gnarly. And small. And wormy.
There's no way I'm going to be eating these.
And there are a billion of them!
And even as I'm working my way around the tree, bent over at the waist, picking up the apples one by one, I can hear more apples hitting the ground.
Thump. Thump. Thumpidy thump thump.
Ugh.
It's a never ending job, I tell you!
Yesterday, it was all I could do to not walk over to the garage, fire up the chainsaw and take the sucker down.
I was so close.
What stopped me?
If I would have cut it down, I still would have had to pick up all the stupid apples. Plus the branches. And leaves.
And there's the whole not being able to pull the starter rope on the chainsaw thing.
OK, I guess I am a crabapple hater.
Do you have crabapples trees? Or have you mastered pulling the starter rope and gotten rid of the demons?
Cheryl D
I have found a helpful answer to my 2 crabapple trees. My husband says to just leave them on the ground. I can't, I hate to mow and walk all over them, they also bring a lot of flies around this time of year. Raking (good exercise mind you) is what I wanted to try to avoid. I tried my shop-vac (takes too long), tried some deer fencing material (too weak, weight of crab apples tore the net). This year I had success. I used a sturdier netting with small enough holes (Tenax hardware fence, 3X15 roll and tied them together every couple of ft with twist ties, I didn't have zip ties handy at the time) around my tree on the ground. I mowed down short first, then played fencing down right before crab apples started to fall. Worked beautifully. Rolled my pieces up and they are ready for next year. Should be less labor intensive since most my rolls are pieced together (Tenax didn't make larger rolls in the weight I needed). Hope this helps ease the battle of the crab apples! 🙂
Pam
That is genius! I'm definitely doing that next year! I had to laugh at your shop-vac idea though. Tried that. Thought my husband was going to have a stroke when he saw me using it on the apples 🙂