Calcium for Container-grown Apples

[Hillwalker]

I would be very interested in peoples' experiences using different forms of calcium, either straight to the container or to the foliage.

[BUFFS]

I don't feed my tubbed apples any one chemical, I feed with BFB in march and a handful of chicken manure in june and that's all they get, and appear to do well on it. if I used calcium then it would be an autumn feed onto the surface and let the rain wash it in. centuries ago monks were always buried in orchards as they knew even then that calcium was good for fruit trees, even if they didn't know why..

[Hillwalker]

Thanks for your reply, Buffs, I never thought about chicken manure, I'll give that a try next year.

As I'm late in the season applying calcium, I was looking at quick acting calcium forms, particularly calcium foliar sprays: calcium chloride or calcium nitrate. As I don't want to feed any additional nitrogen to my trees, I guess I'll try calcium chloride.

[Snoop Puss]

Could you water in some firewood ash? That contains calcium, as well as other good stuff.

I bought some calcium foliar feed for my tomato plants a while back, but I don't like spraying leaves to be honest, so it's still sitting on the shelf. I started using ash instead and I've never had blossom end rot ever since.