Awesome Apples: Cox's Orange Pippin

In this posting, I report success growing Cox's Orange Pippin apples and provide some tips on how to protect your dwarf fruit trees from squirrels.

Two seasons ago, I did some cursory research on the internet to determine the best apples.  Based on some tantalizing descriptions, I purchased a number of heirloom apple trees and planted them in my garden.  Regular readers may remember a prior posting regarding two potential mistakes I made in selecting these trees and my fear that I would never harvest a single apple.  (Apples In Bloom: Tips for New Fruit Growers)

Fortunately, the fates were good to us, and we harvested our first Cox's Orange Pippin apples this week.  This variety of apple comes from England and it is considered one of the best desert apples on the planet. However, it is notoriously hard to grow, and can produce spotty results...like the "little girl who had a little curl," when Cox's Orange Pippins are good, they are very good and when they are bad, they are horrid.  Well, maybe not horrid, but certainly nothing to get too excited about.

Maybe it is our cool Pacific Northwest evenings, but the Cox's Orange Pippin tree in my garden produced fruit and the apples lived up to their reputation.  Cox's Orange Pippins are beautiful apples with blush color, thin skin, crisp flesh and a delightfully complex flavor.  Adam's Apples, a blog dedicated entirely to apples, describes the Cox's Orange Pippin as follows:

"This is a wonderfully well-balanced apple with a complex bouquet of tastes: cider, a hint of cinnamon and hazelnut, and strong orange and mango notes. The even sweet-tart balance is the perfect backdrop against which these flavors gracefully unfold."

I heartily concur with Adam's description.  These apples leave supermarket apples in the dust and are better than most varieties brought to farmers markets.  

Later this season, I hope to harvest additional heirloom varieties including Ashmead's Kernel, Foxwhelp, Kingston Black and Orleans Reinette.  I let you know more about these in the future.

Tips on Thwarting Squirrels

One thing that frustrates me, is when critter decide to eat up my garden. I wouldn't care if they took some here or there, but squirrels are just gluttons.  They don't just take a share, they take everything.

This Spring my young Blenheim apricot produced some really outstanding fruit.  We enjoyed the first few fruit that ripened, but just as the main crop reached maturity, squirrels swooped in and ate all the remaining fruit in one evening. The bushy tailed devils then stripped a young peach tree of all it's still unripe fruit, denying us even a single fruit from this tree this season.

Looking at the tiny apples that had just formed on my dwarf trees, I feared the worst and moved to protect them. I tried using plastic bird netting, but had difficulty making this work -- I found it nearly impossible to get the netting over the crown of the tree,  the netting tangled up in the wind, and had a tendency to rip up the leaves on the tree.  Internet research suggested that alternative squirrel proofing techniques such as spraying trees with nasty smelling liquids or using plastic models of owls (squirrel predator) were not effective.  

Since my trees are very young and didn't really have lots of fruit on them, I decided to try a different strategy.  Rather than covering the whole tree with bird netting, I opted to cover just the fruit. To do this, I purchased some small nylon mesh bags.  These bags measure 10 x 6 inches and are made of the same plastic material that is used to bag up onions and shallots for sale in the supermarket. (see below) To protect the young apples, I placed these bags over individual clusters of fruit and then tied them off with the little drawstrings at the top of the bag.  

So far, the bags seem to be effective. I suspect that squirrels identify fruit by it's shape and the bags work because they camouflage the apples so they don't look like fruit. Whatever, the mechanism, it seems to be working.  Another nice benefit I've discovered is that any apples that fall off the tree, are caught by the bag so they never hit the ground.

Photo: Foxwhelp apples covered in mesh bags

Obviously, covering individual fruit clusters only makes sense for dwarf trees or relatively young semi-dwarf trees.  As my trees get bigger, I'll have to come up with some other solutions, but for the next season or two, this method should work reasonably well.  

Comments

[Eric]

How did this onion bag trick work for you thru harvest? Im considering it when my trees are ready in a year or two.

[H. Mark Delman]

I believe the bags saved a good portion of my apples. The squirrels did get some, but the bags were a deterrent. The solution works for small trees but as the crop gets larger it will be more difficult to do this. At some point it will prove unworkable, but hopefully the trees will be producing enough that I can tolerate the loss.

I think the best approach may be to try several strategies at once. This year, Im going to use the bags again, but Im also setting out traps (http://www.havahart.com/store/live-animal-traps). These traps, dont kill the squirrels, they just capture them. Ive already set these out because my apricot is in bloom and have sent 5 squirrels into exile. I catch the bushy tails and then transport them to a park 5
miles away -- far enough that they wont find their way back so easily. Squirrels have ranges, so if I keep this up, I should be able to reduce the number of squirrels right around my house.

I also plan to add an additional measure -- some nasty smelling squirrel repellent. I think its made of garlic etc. and squirrels said to dislike it. I dont have any illusions that this alone would work, but I think a combination of bags, traps and stinky stuff will reduce my crop losses.

Hope this helps.

-PlanterTomato

[gerry]

i have a major squirrel problem in my yard but ive found that though the squirrels love the stone fruits, they dont pay too much attention to the apples.
I still bag my apples, but to protect from bugs which can easily destroy a crop. I have been using the nylon footies, which can be bought for 250 for about $6. these are large enough to cover 2-3 apples. where did you buy your onion bags from. did they prevent codling moths from laying eggs in the fruit (i.e. did you find any little wriggling larvae in your apples when you bit into them)

[H. Mark Delman]

Hi Gerry:

I purchased the onion bags from a supplier I found on the Internet, but I cant recall who that was. I did not see evidence of codling moth, but I cant say it was the bags that did this. The mesh in onion bags is larger than in nylons, so I wouldnt trust them to do the job for you.

Thanks for visiting.

[Eric]

I am curious where you bought your bags. If you happen to remember, please reply. I cant find those bags anywhere online without a humongous order or from a sketchy website.

Thanks,

-Eric

[H. Mark Delman]

Hi Eric:

Sorry, I cant remember where I got these from. See my previous response to Gerry attached to the same posting regarding squirrel prevention.