Thinning the Crop

(Left) The bag of tiny apples show wasn't picked to feed the deer "apple candy", but to thin out the over abundance of fruit on the  Blue Heron Middle School orchard.  Each spring, a group of gleaners put their picking skills to use by taking thousands of nickel sized apples off the branches. The apples that are left with six inches between them, grow big and snackable!

One year a honey crisp apple tree was missed (easy to do in a 70 tree orchard). Later that season the tree had tons of apples, but they were half the size of what you would find in the stores. The next year the same tree had low production. 

Moral of the story, thin your crop if you want good sized fruit every single year.

Below: Sharon, Doug, Ruth & Seth, Barbara and Dorthy while thinning on

June 19, 2022