Today's Fruit Minute here at Goomba's Victory Garden deals with the various problems faced by you apple growers. We're still searching for a treatment for the condition shown in this photo from Woodsterman. Hang on, Odie, we can help...But for now, if you're troubled by sobriety and bag worms, take this advice from S.W. Cole's "The American Fruit Book" (1849). To rid your trees of the worms, their larvae in the web, or to prevent the worms from crawling up the trunk in the first place:
“Dry ashes or fresh slacked lime thrown on the tree when the dew is on…One pound of WHALE OIL SOAP to 4 gallons of water…canvass or thick paper (old leather is better) around the tree and apply tar to it. Mix train oil with the tar or India rubber dissolved in whale oil. Burn India rubber, any viscid substance can be mixed…”
Then, to get rid of worms in your apples, let the apples fall and “let hogs run in the orchard and eat the fallen fruit”.
Environmental and whale issues be damned! Find train oil at your local train store. Find old leather and hogs at the next Barbra Streisand concert. And what to do on your Sunday afternoons? Damn the temperance reform, get hammered on New Jersey cider!
“CIDER is valuable for vinegar, though the temperance reform has almost banished it as a beverage. The farmer no longer toils hard in Fall to fill his cellar with cider, nor works hard all winter to drink it. Yet cider is valuable for vinegar. Apples for cider are better for growing exposed to sun and air; hence those from a young orchard are best….The Harrison and other fine cider apples of New Jersey produce about 1 barrel to 10 bushels.”
To hell with vinegar!
For those of you noodling on the name for that baby girl, consider apple variety names like Red Siberian Crab, Winter Sweet Paradise, Bellflower or Beauty of Kent. For boys, consider the pests, like Bag Worm, Borer or Bark Louse.
Odie writes to tell us that he's got four new hybrid apples he's named Russian Bride, English Dentist, Iranian Author and Hungarian Inspector!
See you next week here at Goomba's Victory Garden!
19 comments:
Would a .45 ACP round work on the apple?
OOOH, I'll take a Red Siberian Crab. Being from the Eastern Shore of MD, I love crabs.
I think that apple needs to get shotup in a good old-fashioned rodeo shootout.
Sweet post, it made me smile a lot.
I'm partial to" Russian Bride."
I'm a big fan of the Golden Malicious.
I was never partial to the Gala ones.
But perhaps the Branny Smith variety would be good for the gentleman of a certain age....
I'm not partial to either fruits or nuts -- is this a discussion of Sen. Barney Frank?
Barney Frank's new varieties are Blushing Page and Sweet Chunky Senator.
Opie, apple sauce made from Branny Smith apples can clean rust from chrome patio furnitue, and FAST!
Teresa, Sweet Siberian Crab legs are delicious. But removing those furry little boots and parachute pants is difficult.
Yeah, what he said ....
Odie, what did you do about the infestation? Did you take CI Roller Dude's advice?
I'll take one of each!..heh
WHT:
The RB is big,pasty and splotchy, the ED is small and bitter, the IA is great for strudel, and the HI is just for throwing at squirrels.
I pissed on it ... works every time, Rhod
"Find old leather and hogs at the next Barbra Streisand concert."
Five-by-five.
Rhod ... your very poetic when you post while going True Grit with the New England Cider bottle.
Odie sent me some made from his strange apples.
It had some bite to it.
That apple brings back memories of the morning after hang-overs from my teenage "Scrumpy" binges. Ugghhh. But great hard apple cider can be found in the country formerly known as Great Britain.
Lib Adv, the thugs in Brussels will put an end to that.
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