Catching apples

donteatthat

Hi all,
I'm wondering if anyone has some advice for us.
We have moved into a house and are lucky enough to have a massive apple tree. The apples we collected last year were lovely!
The problem we have is how to catch or collect them. The upper branches are too high to reach safely, even with ladders and extending poles etc, but the apples get very bruised when they hit the floor. Is there any system of netting that can be used to catch them?
How does people get round this?
Thanks

a1cat

I get round it by having smaller apple trees ie they are pruned to keep them manageable

Right, assuming you don't want to do this or invest in a cherry picker, you could try the olive picking nets solution - just keep the nets off the ground to provide a bounce/ cushion

rabidbun

We always used to use an apple picker (basket type thing on a pole) when I was little. Also would work with a large pole to shake the branches as long as there were a couple of folks underneath with good reactions and a blanket, though that does cause bruising if more than one fall at once, or if the apples hit them.

a1cat

Shaking works if somebody hefty goes up and shakes from up top (fearless climber lol) and a couple of people below don't mind getting smacked on the head with a few apples, all good fun & it doesn't really hurt

splodger_seedswapper

apple picker is the best method if you can't climb the tree and pick by hand

donteatthat

Thanks guys, it's due for pruning after it's finished with it's fruit this year!

lizzyb1812

You can make an apple picker from the top 1/3 to 1/2 of a 2 litre pop bottle and a broomstick or similar. Tape together then cup the apple with the pop bottle and twist/shake until apple pops into the bottle.

RAS

What sort of apple tree? Cooker or eater? Season of ripeness?

If it is a cooker, then pick what you can using picker, ladders etc and put aside intact unbruised apples for storage.

Once you can no longer reach stuff get a tarpaulin and five people; one on each corner of the tarp one to shake each branch. I recommend hard hats, even so expect a few bruises from apples hitting bits that stick out.

Any fruit that appears to be unbruised can be put to one side and checked over a week or so later.

Bruised fruit needs processing for freezing, bottling or juice, preferably within 48 hours and certainly within a week.

donteatthat

I'm not sure at all what they are but they are definitley suitable for cooking and eating as the ones I salvaged last year just after I moved in were lovely. Lots of bruises though where they had hit the deck . It's just got little apples growing on it now, and it's very abundant so we are trying to keep as many as possible! It's just coming to July now, and we were still getting them off the tree last October so not sure how apple trees even work - do they just have 1 crop, or several within that period?

RAS

donteatthat wrote: »

I'm not sure at all what they are but they are definitley suitable for cooking and eating as the ones I salvaged last year just after I moved in were lovely.

Sounds like an early dual purpose or a late/mid-season eater.

donteatthat wrote: »

I'm It's just got little apples growing on it now, and it's very abundant so we are trying to keep as many as possible!

If it is very abundant now, then you will actually do better if you take some of the little apples off. You will have bunches of apples where the blossom was in the spring. Anything from one to about six, even after the June drop. You will get better fruit if you reduce the ones that you can reach to one apple per bunch, that way you get one large apple rather than lots of tiddlers with lots of core. Since you cannot reach some, you end up with a mix of sizes.

donteatthat wrote: »

It's just coming to July now, and we were still getting them off the tree last October so not sure how apple trees even work - do they just have 1 crop, or several within that period?

Not sure where you are but apples ripen from late July/ early August onwards. The earliest varieties like Beauty of Bath are only fit to eat for about two/three weeks. The keepers actually ripen January to May but are taken off the tree in late autumn. Some will cope even with the very sharp frosts we had last year but tend to get eaten by birds if left on the trees.

So it sounds like yours is mid-season, ripening in September or early October; there were some very high winds last year that caused a lot of trees to lose their crops a bit earlier than usual. Unbruised they may keep a little while.

morg_monster

Wish my grandma had followed this advice. She had a lovely red apple tree in her back garden but all we ever ate were windfalls... she never picked them properly! Very strong memories of sitting in the garden, eating around the huge bruises. Had to have about 5 to get one apple's worth of nice fruit!