A lovely weekend in July, and I have spent a chunk of it putting pantyhose on the apples in the two trees in my garden.
It was my neighbor's idea last summer, and it proved to be a good one. Left to their own devices, our apples are magnets for all kinds of worms, beetles and maggots:
If you want to get any edible apples at all, you really need to do something to keep out the insects. So last summer our clever neighbors bought a big box of peds and used them to cover all the fruit they could reach. We took a handful and experimented on our own trees. It worked surprisingly well: the sheathed apples were mostly un-invaded, and quite tasty. So this year we bought some peds of our own and took to the ladders.
Wearing a dress with no pockets, I had no choice but to stash my handfuls of peds in my bra:
I got through three cupfuls.
Arguably we could have saved more apples if I had bigger breasts.
The peds are cheap to buy in quantity. Plus, now the apples will be ready to go if they find that must-have pair of red patent leather pumps.
As a barrier method, the peds seem to work pretty well. Of course, other barrier methods come to mind:
Can't imagine any apple maggots slipping past THAT goalie.