I not only beat the squirrels in this year's apple harvest game, I trounced them with a score of 132-12. Best of all I didn't have to wear a helmet and I only attended one practice.
In 2016 I planted 2 apple espalier trees. They were 3 feet tall. 7 years later they are still 3 feet tall. Each tree has 6 branches that have been grafted to a trunk. And each branch grows a different variety of apple.
The magic of an espalier tree is that it doesn't grow any taller. The height at planting is the height it will always maintain. Plus they grow flat. They're only 1' deep. Imagine growing a wall of apples in the same space a boxwood hedge or clematis vine fits.
That means they take up NO space at all, you can grow them against a fence or a house wall and harvest hundreds of apples.
The success of your harvest is directly correlated to the success of the squirrels harvest.
Typically I get a harvest, but it doesn't require a crate. This post shows off what a typical apple harvest is after I've lost apples to dropping, squirrels and bugs. But mainly squirrels.
I've tried everything I could think of to save the apples from the squirrels over the years. I wrote about all the apple protecting methods I've tried in this post.
🍎 This Year I Can Confirm THIS Is the Best Apple Protection There Is 🍎
Thin, plastic cloches from the dollar store. They come in a pack of 5 for a couple of dollars. I wrote about this method to protect apples before and it worked well but I continued to experiment.
This year, I went back to the plastic cloche method and plan to stick with it.
Pros: It works. Squirrels can't get to the apples easily. You can reuse the cloches year after year.
Cons: They're hideous.
I'm a function over form person so I can live with the cloches. I'd rather have them on the tree and GET apples than have my trees look pretty but spend my days sucking on a bottle of Gaviscon to keep the squirrel-hate bile down.
A couple of weeks ago I pulled the cloches off and started harvesting. Up until that point I had lost about 12 apples either to squirrels or skunks.
I know it was that number because squirrels and skunks like to pick apples. They do not particularly like to eat them. I find them just below the tree with scratch marks on them and occasionally in more taunting places, like on top of the fence outside my kitchen window or on my porch.
So yup. The cloches did their job. I suppose if I were to be 100% transparent I should also mention that just behind the apples, and under my front porch was the living quarters of a raccoon all summer.
I didn't know the raccoon was living under the porch until I watched a skunk move in and kick the raccoon out one morning.
Then I had to get rid of the skunk.
Here's the episode.
You might have noticed that after the skunk moved in, I partially screwed a layer of hardware cloth over the hole in my porch. I kept it loose enough that the skunk would be able to escape at night to go hunting, but tight enough it wasn't able to get back in. In the morning I finished screwing the hardware cloth to the porch knowing nothing was stuck inside.
The Raccoon Effect
As it happens, squirrels are afraid of raccoons. I know this to be a valid fear after having seen a raccoon grab, kill, and eat a squirrel in my maple tree, dropping its tail to the sidewalk below.
THEREFORE I'm still not sure if it was the cloches, the squatting raccoon or a combination of both that led to my huge apple harvest.
This crate and 2 baskets are holding the first harvest of over 100 apples. I'll pick the remaining ones this week.
The two branches that produced the majority of the apples were Jonagold and McIntosh. The Jonagolds are delicious and perfect for eating and I'm preserving the McIntosh apples in a couple of ways.
In the next couple of weeks I'll be showing you how to make and can applesauce and make dehydrated apple chips.
I challenge any squirrel to share the same level of practical information with you.
So happy to see you got a good number of McIntosh apples. They are my favorite cooking apple. I cover the bottom of a saucepan with fresh apple cider, then cut up these apples and add to the pan, cook them down, use the potato masher and it's the BEST apple sauce EVER. In baking, I use them in my apple crisp, along with Honeycrisp and Cortland. The combination of apples really makes a great crisp.
Congratulations on your triumph over the squirrels! My own squirrel story involves corn--my husband and I had a couple of ears on our experimental corn (first time we'd tried to grow it), were getting ready to pick it, but went for a walk first...you can guess the outcome. The squirrels picked the ears and destroyed them before we got back from our short walk. We used to have a Jack Russell Terrier who was murder (literally) on squirrels, but even she couldn't keep the squirrels from eating our garden.
absolutely beautiful espalier! really nice!
I am deciding on apple varieties right now-
I love Fuji's they seem to have the nicest all around flavor and texture. but they aren't very disease resistant.
which apple varieties have you decided are nicest?
crunchy/sweet/not mealy/and nice and juicy?
How many years after you planted them did they start producing fruit? I’ve never heard of this type but am so intrigued.
Well done! Like everyone who follows you, I never cease to be amazed by your resourcefulness. Thanks for sharing and always making me smile.
Love your rutabaga, I like to eat them raw.
Here in the mountains of Arkansas, my grandmother advised me this way:
Darlin' Girl,
Always plant one for the rabbit,
One for the mouse,
One for bird,
And one for the house.
We have a sugar bush about 50 minutes south of here. There are at least 2 heritage apple trees on the property but we don't know what type of apples they are. They taste nothing like any apple from the grocery store. I think this was a mast year for producing trees, walnut, chestnut, oak, apple, there was so much fruit on the trees from which we harvested. My husband made an apple crisp that was so delicious. I think the delicious factor went way up because the apples came from our forest.
Congrats on beating the squirrels! We don’t have apples on our apple trees yet, but I’m sure we will have to battle them next year and I’ll be using your tricks. Our quarrel with the squirrels this year is for our carrots. I didn’t know they were able to pull them out and run away with them!
Great harvest!
..... friggin' squirrels, I think I need a racoon...
Beautiful harvest. We have Jonagolds too but they’re always pitted, rotting and full of wasps by the time they mature. Do you spray with anything to avoid “apple diseases” ? The 1/4 non-rotted apple we harvest from the tree is so tasty!
Beautiful harvest! We have the same problem with squirrels and our orange tree. Big, beautiful navel oranges on a tree that was here when we moved in 45 years ago, and the squirrels rip them right off the branches and take them to our deck and leave tiny little shreds of orange peel all over, and eat about half or less of each fruit they pick.
They always do this before the fruit has actually sweetened enough for us to eat, and oranges don't continue ripening if they're picked before they're ripe. The tree rats just laugh and skip away when we try to chase them off. If I believed in Heaven I would be certain there are no squirrels there. Vandals.
You had me at orange tree.....
Congratulations on the abundant harvest and your success against the ravages of the neighborhood squirrel terrorist population. Very clever use of the wire mesh to 'de-critter' the porch. It's like Wild Kingdom out there in Dundas -lol