Orchard Pest Breakthrough…with Ziploc Bags!

Perfect Florina apple

It feels like a miracle. Just look at the photo!

You may be thinking, what’s so miraculous about a plain ol’ apple, cut in half? 

Well, easy answer: there’s no yucky brown tracks inside the fruit—what we have here is a firm, crisp, homegrown apple.

When we moved to the country, for several years, my husband John and I happily raised gorgeous and tasty organic apples—and without spraying them with pesticides or fungicides. 

We had loads of them to feast on into winter, and gave away lots more to friends and family.

Then seven years ago, we found strange brown trails inside our apples—what we discovered was the apple maggot pest.

Here’s more about this Destructive pest and how it works in your orchard.

Every harvest after that, our apples were afflicted. The brown tracks weren’t so bad the first couple of years, if you weren’t too persnickety. But each harvest showed more and more damage in the fruit—the apple would be soft, and dimpled with little dots. Cutting one open, you’d find big, nasty brown spots and holes. 

They were completely inedible. 

John and I tried an organic remedy: nematodes you buy from the garden supply store. They weren’t cheap: about $40 for both a fall and spring application.

More info here about Good orchard management and nematodes.

Sadly, even after applying them for several seasons in a row, they just didn’t work: we had nothing but fruit full of brown stuff. For a while, I gave a bunch of damaged apples to my sister for her horses, but the fruit became so horrible even horses would turn up their noses!

Enter my orchard epiphany: to try a whole new orchard strategy. It involved dedicated spring tree pruning and summer fruit thinning, and something new. 

Covering the young, developing fruit. With sandwich-size Ziploc bags!

Newly harvested Florina apples, still in their protective “covers”

I didn’t come up with this Ziploc idea—I discovered it from a food gardening expert. And I resisted it for a while. I mean, what this world does not need is more plastic use!

But I’m absolutely delighted to say, It works!

John and I did our best to limit our apple production with the pruning and thinning, so we didn’t have the hundreds and hundreds of apples to deal with. I think we produced maybe 60 or 70 apples this year—so we didn’t even use up one package of Ziplocs. 

On through the apple harvest, we picked William’s Pride, Tsugaru, Akane and Red Gravenstein—the ones the bear didn’t get. And then our largest harvest, Florina! And each apple was as clean as a whistle. 

Apples right out of the plastic bags

Well, inside the fruit. 

The one downside to Ziplocs is that earwigs (creepy-crawly insects) sneak inside the bag, leaving little black bits behind—which I can only assume is earwig-poo. You can see the black bits in the enlarged photo above. 

The thing is, if you go organic with your fruits and veggie growing, you’re sure to see various pests.

But washing your apples takes care of that! 

Washed fruit ready for the fridge

Rinsing out the Ziplocs, we’re planning to use them again next summer. I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited about growing apples. Fingers crossed this strategy will work every year!

For more about our bear visitor, and other homesteady stories, c’mon over to Little Farm Writer!