Fruit.

This week I would like to tell you something about the fruit trees in my garden. You see I never use pesticides so a lot has to be done before harvesting.

Let me start with the plum tree. She carries a lot of fruit this year. These fruits should be "thinned". I can hear you thinking: why Hetty?

Well in the past I did not “thin” my plum tree. In my opinion it was a waste to remove so many plums from the tree. Against all good advice I left all those little plums in the tree. The tree did not give up and caused a mega harvest. The branches were almost hanging to the ground. The large harvest yielded many (small) plums.

The following year I started thinning the plums. I removed at least 8 out of 15 plums. That may seem rigorously, but as a result the harvest is better. The plums are larger and the tree thrives.

As I finish thinning the plum tree, I notice a lot of apples in the apple tree too. So I decide to thin the apple tree as well. As I do so, I see some wooly aphids in the apple tree. Ugh! I must tackle that immediately. Without pesticides of course.

With the garden hose I firmly spray all those wooly aphids from the tree. That helps! This is the way to do it without using pesticides!

Now I just will have to wait for the apple and prune harvest. It looks like it will be huge this year. Apples, prunes ... unsprayed. Delicious!

Romantic rose garden

Plums.

Plum tree in my garden.

The removed fruit look nice in a basket.

There are a lot of apples too.

Beautiful.

The wooly aphids.

I spray them with the hose!