All Things Gardening
One key to knowing when to harvest apples is in the seeds
- And I'm Mary Angish. Hey there, Charlie. - Hi, Mary. - Well, Charlie, could you give us some tips on how we harvest, especially apples and pears, the right way? - Yeah, we've had a great fruit season here and I think in a lot of places. Lots of cherries, our plums are still coming in and now the apples and pears are starting. And I know that that's one that people grow a lot in their backyards and often have questions about when to harvest. So let me go through it to give you an idea of when to pick those beautiful fruits. You wanna make sure you know your variety. So some varieties are early maturing, some mid-season, some late. Same thing with apples. I've already harvested some of the apples on our trees already and then there's others that'll be probably September, October before we harvest. So know the variety that you have and it'll give you a ballpark idea of when you should be starting to harvest. If you have an apple out there and it's starting to color up well and you have a lot of them, pick one and cut it in half. If the seeds inside are brown, then it's mature. That means then you can harvest it. Even if it has a tart flavor, it'll soften up and sweeten up in storage. For pears, it's a little bit different. You wanna harvest them on the immature side and then let them ripen inside. If they ripen on the tree, they'll kinda get all mushy and stuff. Again, know the variety. We just finished harvesting our summer crisp pears. But our luscious pears, they're probably another month away before harvesting. And probably the best way to know when to harvest pears is to take the pear fruit, move it horizontally and give it a slight tug. If it just separates off the tree really easily when you do that, it's ripe, go ahead and harvest. Okay, let's tackle a couple of questions. This one's coming in from Celia. And Celia writes, "I've made a few attempts to direct seed, cilantro, basil, carrots, spinach and beets into the garden. Each time somebody's eating the tiny leaves as soon as they come up. So the plants don't even grow. I've never had this problem before. Who is eating the tiny seedlings? No one's eating the more mature plants. I've seen a lovely toad in my garden. Is she the culprit? - No, not the toad, Celia. It's probably the slugs and snails. It's been so wet, so consistently, all summer long, that any little seedling that comes up, they're just ready to pounce on it at night. So you never see them, but you see the damage in the morning. You could do a number of things for the slugs and snails to get rid of them. Probably the easiest thing to do this time of year is to use an organic bait called sluggo. That's an iron phosphate based bait. And when they eat the sluggo, they actually go back and die, but it doesn't harm the plants or the creatures in the soil. So give that a try. Okay, this next question from Sylvia in Linden. Sylvia writes, I bought a Mount Royal plum several years ago. It never grew fruit. So last year I put in a superior plum, and I've now got fruit on both trees. However, I just noticed the bark of the superior plum has all kinds of ugly orange spots on it. The leaves are eaten up. The fruit has orange spots too. What should I do? - Well, it might very well be rust disease. That's usually a disease you find on apples and pears, but it can be on plums too. And I have Mount Royal, never really had it on my plum, but that might also be because ours are in a very windy spot. So that's one of the things you can think about is are there ways you can increase the airflow around your trees so that this disease can't get started. It's a fungal disease, again, because it's been so wet this spring and summer, that's why you're seeing it. And hopefully next year, it won't be so much an issue. One thing you can do as a preventive measure is this winter, when it gets above 40 degrees sometime in the winter, spray dormant oil or horticultural oil on the trunk and the branches and especially the buds of both of those trees. And that might kill the spores so you don't have so many next year. - Here's one last one from Marianne. Marianne writes, "I've just been given "four 12 inch planners to put on my deck, "which gets good afternoon sun. "Any suggestions on what bulbs to plant this fall? "Preferably perennial and easy to care for "by elderly caregiver." - So yes, bulb season. It is getting very close to being bulb season. You'll start seeing them in garden centers very soon. If you have a container and you want to force some bulbs in the winter, great thing to do, I would wait till October to plant. And then if it's a small container, I would stick with small bulbs, like the small flower narcissus or the crocuses and silas. Those types of bulbs or maybe even the species tulips that have smaller flowers would kind of fit in a small container and you can plant a number of different ones there so you can have a succession of blooms next spring. Or you can just plant them all in tulips or one or daffodils and this have that happen too. Either way, it's fine. Once you've planted it, then it needs to be put into a cool dark place for about 14 to 16 weeks. That means a basement or a closet somewhere where it's cool and dark, just leave it there. And then I would say probably late February, early March, you can bring it out indoors, force it into flower indoors or wait till April or May, put it outside and do it there. - If you have questions, send them to us gardening@bermontpublic.org and listen to this in your favorite podcast app. Thanks, Charlie. - You're welcome, Mary, and I'll be seeing you in the garden. [MUSIC PLAYING] (gentle music)