Not sure why my photos did not show up. Never had a problem before with the photos.

Ok, different than how I posted before but it worked! The plum is Stanley and the apple is Haralson. Still canning and picking Bartlett pears. My plums should be ready in a few more days. The wasps are attacking them even though still somewhat firm flesh but sweet.

Stopped by my orchard/vineyard last night. I thought the concord grapes might be ready and they were. The wasps were attacking my crop with vengeance. Picked 1/2 bushel and then put out my wasp traps filled with Moountain Dew soda. I hope I can keep them at bay until all the grapes are picked and processed into jelly and juice.

I found some of my apples were ripe too so picked a bushel of mixed varieties. Haralson,McIntosh, Cortland and NW Greening were all ripe.

(N.W. Greening)(Cortland)

Nice looking fruit!

Thanks melikeeatplants! I must be crazy to have 21 fruit trees of assorted types as hard to keep up with all the work (I do spray). We get enough fruit for 3 families to eat fresh, can or freeze. Growing fruit is a disease as I always want to grow more varieties even though I do not need more fruit. Time to start grafting more varieties on the trees I already have instead of planting more trees.

I stopped at my orchard last night. Picked some Bartlett pears that somehow were still decent and not too soft. From the very center of the tree. I was surprised to get about 25 pears. Thought the crop was long past. Some surprises are nice.

Picked all the McIntosh and the majority of the Haralson. The red delicious are coloring nicely but still not delicious. Perhaps another week yet. Enough windfall mac's on the ground that I will have to make some apple sauce. We like to put up 15-30 quarts a year.

(Haralson grown in bags)
(Red Delicious on tree's leader)

Very nice..looks like you've got it planed out nicely. Are you spraying some and some not when bagging? What zone are you in,..might want to put into your page so we all can see.

Konrad:

Yes I am spraying most of my fruits. The exception is the Haralson apple since I am using Imidan insecticide. Imidan is supposed to be phytotoxic on Haralson and my experience proves that as the fruit scars up badly on the skin and often cracks as the fruit ripens. Since I sometimes teach a home fruit growing course, I decided to just bag the Haralson. It works well because the tree is only 5' tall and then I can use the photos in my class.

Since I recently planted 2 sweet cherry trees (Imidan is also phytotoxic on sweet cherry), I will resort to buying Avuant insecticide in the future just for the sweet cherries and the Haralson apple. On the rest of my fruits, Imidan has worked extremely well.

I am in SE Wisconsin (zone 5).

Thank you Spartan,

so far at the orchard I didn't need to spray, ..perhaps down the road for apple maggot, I started to spray one tree in town for this, [worse] have used Sevin, one application, should have done twice like last year which has done a much better job.

We hosted some family members over the weekend who stayed for a wedding. After the wedding service and before the dinner, we had lots of help picking my unknown apple. Not sure what it is as it was there when I planted fruit trees near it. This apple ripens late-Sept into early October. It is a green apple that changes to yellow green when ripe and sometimes has the sunny side of the fruit blushed with gold. It is sweet and good for fresh use but horrible for cooking. Heavy bearer every year.

I tried growing leeks in the garden this year. I just love them so thought I would give them a try. I bought 'Lancelot' leek seed and found it grows well for me. Too well as I started so many seeds that I tried to give the extra plants away. Nobody would take them so dumped about 35 nice plants this past May. Those I planted grew very big as can be seen in the picture below. Made some into vichyssoise soup over the weekend using up some duck stock I had made and froze earlier. Mighty tasty soup. Americans do need to become more educated on leeks as they are really missing out on something special. Great in our scrambled eggs to.

(unknown heirloom apple)
(giant Lancelot leeks shown with quarter for sizing)

Since I have a nice break in the apple crop (rest of varieties are later ripening), I decided to work on the pumpkins. My brother grows a lot of Winter Luxury pie pumpkins. Since his crop totaled 35 this year, he is pondering what to do with all of them. I roasted 4 in the oven on Sunday for 2.5 hours at 350 degrees, then ran the flesh thru my food processor.

Mighty sweet! So good I could eat it without making a pie. I froze most of it but saved enough for making one pie. It won't last long. I am partial to starting the day with a slice of pie and a cup of coffee for breakfast. Winter Luxury is the absolute best pie pumpkin for flavor.

On your apple..I'm thinking of Golden Delicious

Leeks is one of my favored veggie also, yours look great!

Love pumpkin pie!

Thanks Konrad! I wish it was a golden delicious as that is one of my favorites. We often go to a nearby U-pick orchard in fall only for their golden delicious as somehow I never got around to planting one in my orchard. My chip budding attempt with golden delicious also failed.

I do like golden delicious for cooking (cut the sugar in 1/2 on any recipe used). They make a really great pie.

My unknown apple ripens before our local golden delicious, does not turn a solid yellow and is more round than conical in shape. Since it does not color well and is not good cooked, I assume it is some heirloom variety not golden delicious.

My brother in law got this tree from a nearby orchard that some doctor started as he thought he would grow organic apples as a hobby. When that failed and the land sold, the developer sold some of the young fruit trees as 2"BB for $70. The price was right so 5 trees were purchased and planted. However the developer had no records as to what variety was in each row so they were sold as "unknown varieties".

I have managed to I.D. the Bartlett pear, Summercrisp pear, Red Delicious, and Northern Spy but no such luck on this unknown apple. It seems it will remain a mystery apple.

My red delicious apple tree is finally ripe. I picked 4.5 bushels yesterday. We have a forecast for mid 20's tonight and tomorrow night. I hope my Northern Spy will be ok as most are not ready fully ripe. Another 5-10 days should do it if we do not get too cold by then. I hate to pick them early but I recall apples are only good until about 25 degrees before they can freeze? I guess I will take a chance and let them hang a bit longer before picking.

(red,crisp and very delicious!)

Ok the weather report for 22 degrees for last week Friday night got to me so I picked my Northern Spy apples. Got about 4.5 bushels. Those on the west side of the tree had colored nicely but those on the east side would have been better if they had another 10 days on the tree. I will have to let them ripen up in the milk house. Here are some shots of the nicer ones (above).

It turns out we only got to 28 degrees so I would have been ok letting them hang on longer. I am not much of a gambler so I will have to use those less colored for pie and sauce. That was my main purpose with this variety anyway. It sure makes a very distinct flavored apple sauce.