What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[Smokerbill]

A jobby. I like that. Not to mention gardening, the verb, is good exercise out in the fresh air and sunshine.

We have a lot of OLD apple trees of indeterminable origin. We call them the "wild apple trees." They produce a lot of apples some years, not as many in others. We'd like to get decent fruit from them, but haven't sprayed them, so the fruit is ... buggy, to say the least. Any recommendations for an organic spray? Or a place to look for information about reclaiming them? They must be 100 years old. They were big old trees when we moved out here 30 years ago.

My apple tree is growing out of the edge of the woods, so it must be an old one. There are apple trees scattered all around here in random places, like the seeds sprouted from animal droppings.

I have no idea what variety it is, other than it's some type of winter apple. They ripen sometime in the fall, October or November.

This is the third season since I've been here. The first year it had lots of apples, but they were infested with worms. Last year it had basically zero apples on it. And this year it's loaded, branches hanging down almost touching the ground, and clean, bug free fruit. It's a puzzle tree to me.

I don't do anything to maintain it. I just let it do its thing and hope for the best, so sorry, no recommendations on sprays. What do you mean about "reclaiming" them?

 

[TooCheep]

Note for those looking to save seeds:

Saving your own seeds is an excellent way to cut down on expenses for vegetables you grow each year. It is also an excellent way to find the best genetics by selecting plant varieties and individual plants that are the best for your location/conditions (best can be anything you like: size, productivity, taste, color, heat/cold tolerance, etc).

One downside to be aware of:

If you are growing multiple varieties of the same or similar plants, then you can easily get cross-breeds/hybrids without knowing about it. For example: if you grow jalapenos and bell peppers without taking precautions, you can get an unexpected hybrid without knowing it. The seeds may contain mixed genetics, but the vegetable will look like a normal jalapeno or bell pepper. Then you spend most of the next year growing a hybrid pepper you don't really want.

How do you avoid these cross-breed situations? Put some type of bag over a couple of flower buds on plant(s) you want to save. When the flowers open, use a q-tip to pollinate back-and-forth between the two flowers. Mark the two flowers with something (a ribbon?) and re-cover until the flowers die or dry up. Then you can remove the bags and let the veggies fully ripen. Harvest seeds only from these protected veggies.

 

[TooCheep]

This is a bit niche, but someone may find it helpful.

I generally buy chicken drumsticks or thighs for convenience and bargain meat prices. I did a bit of checking and found a surprise (to me) way to save a significant amount of money on these.

Generic chicken type: price/lb / % meat = chicken meat price/lb
Drumsticks: $1.20 / 0.67 = $1.79/lb
Thighs: $1.50 / 0.79 = $1.90/lb
Leg Quarters: $0.90 / 0.74 = $1.22/lb

So, I'll now be saving about 1/3 by buying leg quarters. Simple enough to break them down before cooking. Sorry, I couldn't re-find the link where I got those percentages, but you could do the same analysis for breast/wings/whole chickens with a little hunting.

 

[Sally PB]

What do you mean about "reclaiming" them?

Just finding a way to get usable apples from them. Making them productive again, is what I mean.

 

[Smokerbill]

Just finding a way to get usable apples from them. Making them productive again, is what I mean.

Maybe fertilizing, pruning back to promote new growth?

 

[saysfaa]

Apple trees like to be pruned. Maybe love to be pruned is more accurate. Among other things it will help even out the size of the crop from year to year.

 

[CatInTheHenHouse]

We have a lot of OLD apple trees of indeterminable origin. We call them the "wild apple trees." They produce a lot of apples some years, not as many in others. We'd like to get decent fruit from them, but haven't sprayed them, so the fruit is ... buggy, to say the least. Any recommendations for an organic spray? Or a place to look for information about reclaiming them? They must be 100 years old. They were big old trees when we moved out here 30 years ago.

I don’t know of a good spray, but have you considered sending a sample in to have them identified?

 

[Smokerbill]

I don’t know of a good spray, but have you considered sending a sample in to have them identified?

Where would it be sent? I'm kind of curious about my apple tree.

 

[CatInTheHenHouse]

Where would it be sent? I'm kind of curious about my apple tree.

I’m looking at the University of Montana website and it has an apple ID guide which has a link at the bottom. Yuck, I didn’t realize it was that pricey.

My Fruit Tree has better pricing but says the test is ‘simplified.’

Foundation Plant Services is WAY more expensive than the previous two but does appear to cover tree types other than apple.

(And full disclosure, I have not used any of these services myself, I was just aware that the service existed for cultivar preservation and rediscovery. All the seed library digging has put me on a ‘dig up all the weirdo heritage varieties’ binge, so I am inflicting it on the rest of you!)

 

[Smokerbill]

I’m looking at the University of Montana website and it has an apple ID guide which has a link at the bottom. Yuck, I didn’t realize it was that pricey.

My Fruit Tree has better pricing but says the test is ‘simplified.’

Foundation Plant Services is WAY more expensive than the previous two but does appear to cover tree types other than apple.

(And full disclosure, I have not used any of these services myself, I was just aware that the service existed for cultivar preservation and rediscovery. All the seed library digging has put me on a ‘dig up all the weirdo heritage varieties’ binge, so I am inflicting it on the rest of you!)

Knowing what variety it is isn't really that important to me, even at $50. I know it's a winter apple of some type, and that's good enough for me.