Brown bagging it

Well where did you think lunch bags came from, silly?

LOL. So I've been a very excited gardener this year because it was the first year any of my apples and pears set fruit - in fact almost all of them set at least a few fruit, and some have been here for at least five years!  I even had to do the tough job if thinning one of the apple trees this weekend - only because it seemed to have too many apples for its small size, and I'd rather have fewer, bigger apples than lots of dinky ones.

So Saturday I picked off maybe half the apples, which is hard just because you want them all, and you never know if the ones you're picking off would have actually been choice ones.

As I said, that was Saturday.

Tuesday I got home to find deer had removed many of the leaves from that same apple tree, and all but one apple.

One.

That's all they left me!

They also took the only two apples off the tree next over, but didn't touch the pear tree nor the apples in the espalier fence I'm working on at the back.

So I decided to try what I know is used on Asian pears for pest control - stapling a paper bag around the base of the fruit.  Surprisingly, unripe fruit keep a tight grip on the tree, as you know if you've ever gone picking at an orchard.  So the good news is that only one apple came off while I was bagging, and that apple seemed a little wonky anyhow.

I've left just a few apples and pears unbagged 1) as an experiment, and 2) because I was running out of bags.  And in just a few cases, two fruit got stapled inside the same bag - they were just so close to each other.

Now to see how this plays out.  Will the deer (and insect pests) leave them alone?  Will strong winds rip off all my bagged fruit?  Will we get so much rain that the bags turn to mush and/or cement themselves to the fruit?

We shall see!  Cross your fingers for me!