New to apple trees

[Peggy Sue]

I invested in a couple of dwarf apples a few years ago and there are some apples this year for me.... but being an apple novice I just left them to it and although I'm not that squeemish about bugs one bite into the first ti be ready and YUK it was full of something vile
The 'old crew' say spray them but I'd rather noe. I can eat round odd holes but this was a bit un announced. Any help out there?

[grahamhobbs]

Organic apples don't have to be full of 'bugs', but best to inspect them thoroughly or cut them open first before sinking your teeth in. Next thing is to work out what the 'bug' was and whether it was a one off or throughout. If throughout, it maybe the tree was stressed in some way.

[Peggy Sue]

stressedlike no water for 3 months maybe.... better luck next year :)

[froggi]

New to apple trees too.... but my query is re pruning back
I know not to do it at this time of year as the trees are setting fruit etc but when to do it and how hard to prune back??
Have 2 apples (unknown type), a pear, a cherry/plum - I think and 2 plums/greengages (unsure about these last 2)
Any advice would be welcome
Thanks in advance

[Annpan]

Your stone fruits (plum, cherry, greengage) should be pruned in the summer, my cherry tree fruited well this year but only on last years growth, so I pruned it quite heavily last week so I could net it.

Your apples and pears should be pruned in the winter.

The idea of pruning is to cut out any diseased or decaying wood, and to stop the branches overcrowding.... I look up instructions every year on how to do it right, everyone seems to have a different method and I'm still not convinced I get it right but I have yet to cause any real damage

[Odsox]

Maggots in apples are almost certainly caused by the Codling Moth and the way to reduce that is to get a pheromone trap for next year. Spraying won't help as the grubs are already inside the fruit and no amount of spraying will reach them.
Pheromone traps are sort of organic as all they do is attract the male moths at the expense of the female moths, hence unfertilised eggs and no grubs.

[bill1953]

Maggots in apples are almost certainly caused by the Codling Moth and the way to reduce that is to get a pheromone trap for next year. Spraying won't help as the grubs are already inside the fruit and no amount of spraying will reach them.
Pheromone traps are sort of organic as all they do is attract the male moths at the expense of the female moths, hence unfertilised eggs and no grubs.

I had terrible trouble with these and you're right, spraying the developed fruit is no good as the maggot gets in when the fruit is forming doesn't it and the hole is actually the exit hole where the thing has escaped having given the apple a good chomping inside and leaving it all ruined. People used to use grease bands and all sorts of other paints and potions to stop them climbing up the tree but I never saw this do any good except to make the cats paws nice and greasy when in a mad half hour they decided to run up the tree.

[Annemieke]

My experience with apple trees, and pears and walnuts for that matter, is that the main thing is to give it plenty of compost every year. In that case you don't even have to keep the grass way from it. Lots of good food and you have very few troubles. xA

[Minnesota]

A big secret everyone forgets when buying trees to plant...is to research which varieties are fairly trouble free, insect and disease wise. Some trees like the harrelson produces apples with almost no work or chemicals. But some varieties that may be the tastiest and have nice thin skin, are very suseptible to bugs and diseases.