Apples - the end

Five days after my last apple blip, when I got back from WOMAD, the four apples I've been recording had turned red in the sun. I should have photographed them then but I thought it was too soon since the last blip and the apple series risked boring people.

When I got home after midnight last night I discovered that two of my bunch of four were now windfalls so this morning I took them out for a final blip and saw that a third had fallen. I know I should have culled them ages ago, but at least the fourth might now stand a chance of growing.

Usually we suffer little from pests and scavengers, but this year our tiny crop has been attacked a lot - I expect the local apple-eaters are as hungered as I am by the dearth. The largest apple here shows an attack by birds - probably blackbirds.  Once the skin is broken wasps also eat the flesh then, if the apple falls, woodlice and slugs join the feast. The blemish on the bottom apple shows that it contains a maggot, probably, in this case, the larva of a codling moth. I can usually predict a maggot, but was confronted with an unexpected one when I bit into my lunch apple last week. (Don't be alarmed - I have developed a way of biting into apples that leaves the maggots whole and disposable.) The bits of these that I can rescue from the small scavengers will be eaten by the biggest consumer of all.

Blossom - 27 April
Apples - 2 June
Apples - 20 June
Apples - 25 July