Fruit Tree Tip: Pick Up Fallen Fruit and Leaves

Would you like to grow apples on your tree that you’d actually want to eat? Now is the time for some quick cleanup tasks that will give you better fruit next year.

Pick up fallen fruit.  Regularly collect fruit that is on the ground and add it to your yard waste. This is the single most important thing you can do to prevent insect pests next year.  Pests in fallen fruit overwinter beneath the tree and are in the perfect place to create problems next spring.

Rake up fruit tree leaves. Getting those leaves away from fruit trees keeps leaf-borne diseases such as apple and pear scab from recurring. Scab spores will overwinter on the fallen leaves beneath your tree. You’ll recognize scab first as small dark spots on the leaves. Then the fruit becomes marred by slightly raised dark spots, and in severe cases will deform the fruit. Get those leaves out of the yard and into the yard waste!

Another benefit – all of that added weight from fallen fruit and leaves in your yard waste bin will improve Wallingford’s chance of winning the Think Green Recycling Challenge:  http://www.wmnorthwest.com/seattle/seattlerewards.html