Wow! What do you get when you add lots of rain, a little sunshine and three square feet of compost around an apple tree that produced exactly one apple last year?
Ahem, please ignore the buttercups in the background, they've gone wild and it appears the chicks don't care for them, so I need to just yank them out.
Back to the apple tree. This year, for whatever reason, the tree has just exploded with blooms!
I am so impressed that I really want to figure out what, if anything, we did to make this happen. I want to do it again next year. Of course, what's needed are bees for pollination, but thankfully, since I've been out with the chickens, or working on the coop, I've happily seen dozens of bees (both HONEY and bumble) playing amongst the flowers. Yay! Now if only they made it to the blueberries and will stick around until the plum tree blooms.
The only time in the four year history of this tree that we have gotten anywhere close to this level of production was the second year. That year I thinned out all but one apple per cluster. I will likely do that again, and maybe limit it to 15 to 20 apples total. Thoughts?
Oh, and just to let you know, this should be one of many posts in the near future as I work through my uploaded pictures. Lots of action going on at the Davies homestead! Exciting times!
Enjoy your garden!
Ahem, please ignore the buttercups in the background, they've gone wild and it appears the chicks don't care for them, so I need to just yank them out.
Back to the apple tree. This year, for whatever reason, the tree has just exploded with blooms!
I am so impressed that I really want to figure out what, if anything, we did to make this happen. I want to do it again next year. Of course, what's needed are bees for pollination, but thankfully, since I've been out with the chickens, or working on the coop, I've happily seen dozens of bees (both HONEY and bumble) playing amongst the flowers. Yay! Now if only they made it to the blueberries and will stick around until the plum tree blooms.
The only time in the four year history of this tree that we have gotten anywhere close to this level of production was the second year. That year I thinned out all but one apple per cluster. I will likely do that again, and maybe limit it to 15 to 20 apples total. Thoughts?
Oh, and just to let you know, this should be one of many posts in the near future as I work through my uploaded pictures. Lots of action going on at the Davies homestead! Exciting times!
Enjoy your garden!
That looks like a very happy tree. It looks like you will have a nice apple harvest.
ReplyDeleteConditions appear to be good and this tree is coming of age... the moon and stars were aligned! Since it is a young tree - a little thinning of the fruit is probably a good idea but I would definitely let it produce.
ReplyDelete