Thinning apples and other fruit

[nickdub]

Yes, I can tell the unpollinated ones - I thought the June drop was meant to be a natural self-thinning of *pollinated* fruitlets. But it's not something I have observed in practice.

Yes, bit of a myth that - not sure how it got started, but in the general run of things its just the unpollinated ones which fall - in the odd occasion of extreme drought you can get leaf and fruit fall sometimes, but that shouldn't happen on a garden tree where its possible to water in very dry weather - if there's a lot of small fruitless on a tree its a PITA getting enough off, but it really pays dividends in terms of finished fruit size and helping to prevent biennial bearing.

[Jay-ell]

Well I done mine yesterday. It was a lot easier than I thought. There were a few that just popped off as soon as I touched them. Thinned down to about 14 per cordon.

[Lardman]

Most of mine have dropped naturally this year with the exception of kidd's orange red, they were hanging on for dear life.

Mr (or Mrs) squirrel is also helping thin them, it had the cheek to sit on top of the chicken coup yesterday eating a freshly picked (not fallen) Jonagold laughing at my efforts to put netting over the blueberry bushes which the blackbirds have started to eye up.