Fall Begins. 9.6.15

 It's like someone flipped a switch.  It was too-hot summer.  Now it's rainy fall.

Most fruits are done.   We are starting to get some apples.

Bagging fruit was not the perfect solution.  Fruits have much less disease.  But they also have internal mushiness due to the bags, maybe holding in too much moisture.   Some of them are inedible due to the internal mushiness, even if there was no external disease.  That's true for Asian pears and apples.  I'm irritated.  All of the web info was highly positive.  That was not my experience.

I tasted the first Rubinette and Queen Cox apples.  They say the first year they don't have full flavor.  I could tell they were not just regular grocery store apples.

Hosui Asian pear really does have a butterscotch flavor.  Smaller than the others, but good. Asian pears are much easier to pick ripe, compared to Euro pears.

Bearded Iris started again with the damn fungal spot.  I cut off affected leaves and sprayed with neem oil.  I don't know if that will help. 

I put in the second cinderblock raised bed for Chinese chives.  We grow a lot.  Ning uses them as a Chinese vegetable.  They are also excellent bee forage, and beautiful.  These beds are 18 inches high, compared to the 12 inch high wooden beds.  They are noticably easier to scratch out the weeds with a mini-hoe.

The mini-hoe is actually a kitchen tool, sort of a big fork.

All of the garlic is planted.

I moved one of the tree-ring mini raised beds to put in the cinder-block bed.  Then replanted the scallions.  So it's not really a tree ring.  A better name would be onion ring.  Also a convenient height.  Lasts longer than wooden barrels or plastic containers, all of which are deteriorating.  The oak barrels in about 10 years, the plastic containers in about 4 years.

Walking Around. Fruit. 6.7.15

Bagged Apples.  6.7.15

Chinese Haw "Red Sun".  6.7.15

 Walking Around.

For most of the fruits, there isn't a lot that needs to be done, from now to fall.   If I am up to it, I can cut weeds, re-mulch, and do some summer pruning.  Some will need watering.

The zipper lock fruit bags always seem steamed.  I don't know if that hurts anything.  I have not seen that mentioned as an issue.

Ning's Chinese Haw has a nice crop of fruit, still small and green.  First year for that.  Deer like any branches within reach.

Almaden Duke Cherry multigraft.  I finished grafting yesterday.   Nothing to do until about 3 weeks from now, when the ties need to be removed.

Jonared apple multigraft.  Not much to do.  Re-mulch.  Tie down the branches for better spread of scaffold.  Any time this summer.

Fig row.  Lattarula is the most vigorous at the moment.  They will get water, but no fertilizer.

Meyer Lemon, in container.  Blooming nicely.  The fragrance is present even when not in sight.  Very sweet.  Leaves look yellow, but that doesn't seem to hurt.  Just needs water this summer. I do give it some acid-loving plant miracle grow, dilute.

Other citrus, unknown seedling, about 18 years old, just for decoration.  No bloom, not surprised.  Kumquat, no bloom.  I thought it might.  Same treatment as Meyer lemon.

Yates Persimmon.  Now that it's summer, I will back down  on the nitrogen boost.  This is first-leaf, so it will need regular watering.  Same with Mango Pawpaw and Sweet Treat Pluerry.  Speaking of which, the leaves are insect magnets.  Full of holes.  If it continues like that, I may not keep it.

Genetic dwarf peach seedling.  Very lush.  I think it's in it's 3rd or 4th year.  No idea if or when it will bloom.  Kept out of rain all winter.  Zero leaf curl.  Genetic dwarf peaches that were in the rain - covered with leaf curl.

Amaden Duke Cherry multigraft.  6.7.15

Jonared Apple Multigraft.  6.7.15

Lattarula Fig.  2nd year from cutting.  6.7.15

Meyer Lemon.  6.7.15

Yates Persimmon.  6.7.15

Genetic Dwarf Peach Seedling.  6.7.15

Thinning and Zipper Bagging Fruits. 4.25.15

Aubique Petite fig with zipper bags.  4.25.15

Apple cluster before thinning / bagging.  4.25.15

 Today I started bagging fruits, apples and some pears and figs.  The apples are the most important. In my yard, I lose most apples to coddling moth.  Bagging early should prevent that.  Some pears are lost, but not as bad.  Figs do well.  With figs, this is an experiment to see if the bags will deter birds or hasten ripening.  Protecting them in fall would be more important than now, due to shorter rainy fall days that slow ripening, reduce flavor, and encourage mold.

Prior posts about bagging fruits.  Summary -  Easy.  Greatly reduces disease and insect damage.  May be beneficial for some bird damage.  May hasten ripening.  Very few negatives, some report mold on peaches but not so much for other fruits.

I thinned apple clusters to one fruit per cluster, and removed all flowers within 6 inches.  That is pretty severe, but most years my apples are smaller than I would like.  Thinning can help them ripen faster, grow larger, and maybe more flavor. 

This was not much trouble at all.  Puttering meditation.  Puttering medication.  Kind of disappointed when ran out of bags.

Most articles recommend bagging when fruit is dime size.  These are smaller.  I don't think that's a negative.  If they all rot and fall off, I'll know what I did wrong.

Apple singlet after bagging.  4.25.15

Zipper bagged apple bush.  4.25.15

More on Bagging Fruits for Protection. 1.1.15

This is my momentary obsession for gardening.  It will pass.  Something to read and learn during winter.  Meanwhile, some references.

oisat.org describes how to make fruit bags from newspapers.  I can see that working in dry climates, or summer fruit in dry summer areas, such as here.  "works well with melon, bitter gourd, mango, guava, star fruit, and banana" "...prevents insect pests, especially fruit flies, from finding and damaging the fruits. The bag provides physical protection from mechanical injuries (scars and scratches) and prevents female flies' laying activities, latex burns, and fungal spots on the fruits. Although laborious, it is cheaper, safer, easier to do, and gives you a more reliable estimate of your projected harvest."  They use  double layers of the newspapers and sew or stable them to make the bag.

Detailed discussion for various fruits, on Hawaiifruit.net.    They used manufactured bags of various types from Japan.   It's interesting, they note " For hundreds of years throughout most of Asia, farmers have been covering fruit with paper either to protect their appearance or to increase the time the fruit would be on the tree thus making it sweeter." and "This practice first came to Hawaii with the early Japanese immigrants and in the 1920’s Ohau farmers employed school children to wrap figs."  They describe their experiment showing of the first 100 bagged figs, 94 were harvested undamaged.  Six were damaged, thought due to rats.  Of 100 unbagged fruits, 86 were damaged beyond recognition by birds.  Because of the bird damage, insect damage was not possible to assess.  

The Hawaii article discussed multiple varieties of fruit.  The only ones I can grow from their list, are figs.

From rfcarchives.org.au, "In Japan where the average orchard is only two to three acres, bagging is an important cultural operation for fruits such as loquat, persimmon and nashi fruit (Asian pear). ...  bagging is undertaken to reduce the number of pesticide applications and to improve fruit appearance.. provides a major defence against fruit piercing moths ...makes po ssible the production of fruit of a very attractive blemish-free fruit with considerable eye appeal."  Some of the bags in Japan are impregnate with pesticide, something I won't do.  The article goes on to state bag are used for mangos in the Philippines.  Among the types of bags, newsprint was one type that worked well to dramatically reduce insect damage.  Plastic bags did not work well in their work with mangos.  On the same website, one writer used nylon bags made from old curtains, with successful protection of the fruit (1983).   

This article on pears, did not describe insect damage, but rather lack of negative changes in pears due to bagging.  "

Preharvest bagging of pear fruit (Pyrus communis L. ‘Doyenne du Comice') with micro‐perforated polyethylene bags c. 30 days after full bloom did not affect fruit size and weight, density, maturity, and flesh content of N, P, K, Ca, and Mg. Bagged fruit had a greener and lighter skin colour than non‐bagged fruit, whereas the development of blush on the sunny side was not different between treatments"

Apparently, bagging can also be beneficial for persimmons.  

What interests me here is that, in so many years of gardening, I haven't read about bagging fruits.  I'm sure the method will not benefit all fruits, in all climates, but it looks like it's worth testing for apples and a number of other fruits.  It's surprising the method has been around so long, and so widespread, and yet is not part of the general gardening knowledge here.

Edit:  Adding more articles.  In Sicily, in the province of Enna, peaches are bagged in parchment paper bags.    The resultant peaches are called "Pesca Settembrina".   A farmer came up with the bagging method in the 1960s to save peaches from the Mediterranian Fruit Fly.    Also "The pulp firmer and more acidic, due to the slow maturation, make it particularly suitable for the preparation of jams; are excellent in combination with the white meat which give it a special taste."... " The remedy comes a few years later: the parchment paper bag in which the fruits are wrapped 120-150 days before fully ripe peaches protects from pests, from the weather and avoid the excessive use of fertilizers from industrial sources."

Winter Project: Apple bags. 12.17.14

I haven't had as much success as I would like, with apples.  I get them to the point where lots of apples are forming.  Then a lot go to pot.  Distorted, wormy, shrunken apples.  Liberty is pretty good, not much disease or insect damage.  North Pole, one of my older trees with lots of apples, almost never yields an edible apple.  They are distorted and gnarled looking.  Jonagold, very few usable apples.  I got a good apple from my tiny Golden Sentinel apple last year.

The issue is disease and insect related.  From what I read, commercial orchards spray and spray and spray and spray.  Even organic orchards have their organic sprays.  I've been trying my backyard apples with no spray.

Reading about the options, some gardeners insert each developing apple into a modified ziplock bag.  The bag serves as an impermeable shield against most insects and disease.  The result is a vastly improved yield of edible, supposedly perfect, apples.  An added benefit, they ripen 2 weeks earlier.  Some gardeners staple the bags in place.  Others think that is not needed.  One writer refers to this as a "Ziplock® Orchard"

The concept of bagging apples is common in Japan, where a large fraction of the crop is bagged.  They use opaque bags, which must be removed to allow color formation and ripening.   They also apply stencils, which prevent color formation under the design, resulting in a yellow tattoo on a red apple.  The Japanese apples bring a high price premium, but it is happening less now because of the labor involved.  Young rural Japanese people have other things to do, than bag apples.  Prior to use in Japan, in the past century apples were bagged in France.

The apple bags are super easy and quick to make.  A box of sandwich-size zipper bags costs a couple of dollars, generic.  Mine came to a little over 1 cent per bag.

Use a sharp scissors.  Cut the 2 bottom corners, for drainage of any water that leaks into the bag.

Cut off the top flaps, because the zipper will go around the apple stem.  Most stems are too short to accommodate the top flaps.  Open the bag before cutting the flaps, or it's a trial to get open.

I prepared 200 for next spring, then put them in my gardening cabinet.  Spring is busy, better to make them now.  I doubt I'll need anything near 200, but there they are.

From the articles I read -

#The bags do not result in overheating the apples.  But the apples do wind up larger and ripen about 2 weeks sooner.

#Insects and disease do not enter through the cuts.  Rarely an insect enters around the stem.

#Some apples might have a not-perfect smudgy appearance.  That is not clear - the same author stated, so did their non-bagged apples.

#The bags must be applied very early - just after petal drop.  Thin the fruit at the same time.  If applying bags when the apples are larger than, say, a dime, then some insect and disease damage may be beginning, and you are locking the barn door after the horse was stolen.

#Based on my readings, bags work for solid fruits, like apples, pears, quince. But not for soft fruits, like peaches and plums, which may rot.

#The bags are not 100% effective, and work better in some climates than others.  Where they do work, they are much cheaper than spraying.  It's possible the bags are less effort than repeated spraying, especially with dwarf trees - no ladders.  With bags instead of sprays, you are not indiscriminately killing both harmful and beneficial insects by spraying everything, especially since multiple sprays seem to be needed.   So, both carnivorous insects, and pollinating insects both live to do their important jobs, and you can promote a beneficial garden ecosystem.

#Other types of bags, such as paper, are more trouble.  Rain and wind are more damaging to paper bags.  The bags must be removed for fruit to color properly.

#The zipper bags can be left on the fruit for storage.  According to my readings, the fruit will last longer than non-bagged fruits.

#I wonder if paw paws would ripen a couple weeks earlier too?  If mine set this year, I might try.

So this project is done.  It will be summer before I know if it works.   I have not done this before, so I can't vouch for the method.  Several writers swear by it.