Loads of Fallen Apples - How to Pick up?

[MrJimi]

How about you put a sign in front of your place advertising
Pick your own apples, bring your container, very reasonable prices
and just rake the money in?
equals, apples mostly gone and $$ in your pocket
Jim

 

[TMcD_in_MI]

Hey, you guys have good ideas! We've been making applesauce quite a bit lately and I'm thinking the snowblower would probably make it a lot faster than the way we do it. I'll just aim the chute outlet downward, put a bucket under it, and it'll be done before you can say Mott's Applesauce. Good for cider making too, I'll bet.

Well, dknarnd, we do have deer around here, but they don't seem to be up to the job. Sure, they annihilated my buckwheat crop last summer and ruined a new honeycrisp tree, but will they step up and chomp apples when I need them to? Nope - just a few here and there. The bums.

I'd love to sell the apples or just give them away, but most of them are not very high quality, since I don't spray them at all.

Steve and Andy - I'll try the York rake idea, and maybe it will help even out the ground a little bit too, so next year will be better.

If I do try the snowblower, I'll get a video clip of it and post it here. Don't hold your breath, though.

Thanks, guys, for the tips and the laughs. Keep 'em coming.

Tom

 

[Deadman]

Tell your buddies that hunt deer, and they'll literally fight for the apples.
They are usually excellent bait, but if the deer aren't eating them now....maybe they won't eat them for the hunters either??????

 

[wotalota]

I inherited old apple and pear trees. The fruit is not really usable, the trees are too big for me to spray and I wouldn't want to. I tried to make a game of flipping the apples to a given point and hand raking from there but that got old. The tractor wheels crush them and make more of a mess. The deer love them but only partially eat an apple leaving the remains. The crows also eat them getting them out of the tree and then eating them on the ground but still leaving most of a rotting fruit. If it was a couple of weekends, perhaps, but it goes on week after week. I chose the chain saw. It does not look as good and from seeing deer every evening I have not seen one since. For a few days the crows wandered around where the trees used to be. Starting to get used to them being gone and the maintenance was not something I felt I could manage in the future.

 

[john_bud]

I have over 50 mature semi-dwarf apple trees. There is no easy way to get rid of the apples from the ground. We are in Wisconsin in the country, deer country at that, and there are always lots and lots of apples that have turned to mush in the spring. I've picked up and given away probably over 2 full truck loads of apples this fall. Still more on the ground. I've made apple juice from hundreds of pounds of apples. (actually there is 15 gal of juice turning into hard cider between me and friends.)

The deer will ignore the apples and eat my wifes flowers and plants. Go figure.



Andrewj - check out products for deer food plots. There are some inexpensive things done to protect plots until the greens are mature. A sented rope around, is common. Seems to work from the advertisements.

jb

 

[charlz]

York rake into windrows and THEN the snowblower

 

[hazmat]

I have a couple dozen mature (not dwarf) apple & pear trees in my backyard. This year I bought a stihl multi attach powerhead & rotary broom. So far it is the best solution, but is still somewhat backbreaking labor. I widrow the apples with the broom & then suck them up with my track vac (kinda makes apple sauce in the trailer) or sweep them into the loader bucket. I've considered a rotary broom for the Kubota, but cost keeps me at bay...

Prior to the broom I would rake and use my Little wonder walk behind leaf blower (which works OK provided you haven't smooshed the apples with the tractor).

The local deer & woodchucks eat some, but hardly make a dent.

 

[Tororider]

I am disappointed in your deer, they must have too many other food sources.

I was going to suggest using the FEL and dragging it backward and seeing if that would work.

Regardless, next time you get it cleaned put down huge tarps so that you can use the tractor to drag the tarps with the tractor to wherever you are going to dump them and then repeat. As long as you don't care that the grass will be ruined. Hey, its an idea, I didn't say it was a good one.

 

[WayneB]

I'm in my 30s. 3 young kids and one on the way. I just planted 140 apple trees over 1.5 acres two and a half years ago. they are growing and branching out well. each year I walk through the orchard and dream of apples one day. I am over run with deer. The deer browse leaves, twigs and do immense damage.

So I am comforted that one day, when each tree dumps a load of apples, those deer I have fought for years will finally help me clean up!!!!

Hi Andrew,

Just curious as to what type of trees you planted and what spacing you used.

Regards,

Wayne

 

[rbargeron]

........So, is there any hope that I could somehow do this all from the seat of a tractor, or am I stuck with manual labor?

Back dragging with the bucket will make them break down and disappear faster - it makes a little mess but it doesn't last long. Besides it makes a nice temporary party site where the bees can come get drunk on the fermenting mash - they deserve a little R&R after working hard all growing season. The disease pressure that would be avoided by taking the fruit away is mostly the fungus spores from the skins that overwinter on the ground and go back into business when warm weather returns. But since you aren't trying to grow presentable fruit anyway, the effect on the appearance of next year's crop won't make much difference.