House of Hawthornes

Vintage. Thrifting. Gardening.

The Crabby Crabapple Owner

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When last we spoke, I was showing you my apple vignette on my kitchen table.

All is not ap-peeling in the apple world though.

My “job” every week is to pick up all the crabapples before my husband mows that part of the yard. I hate this “job”.

I use quotes because I’ve yet to see any “money” from this “job”.

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Now, I don’t want you to think I’m a crabapple hater. I mean, the blooms in the spring are drop dead GORGEOUS.

Gorgeous crabapple blooms against a green chalkboard


But the apples are gnarly. And small. And wormy.

There’s no way I’m going to be eating these.

And there are a billion of them!

Crabapples, the fruit from heck

And even as I’m working my way around the tree, bent over at the waist, picking up the apples one by one, I can hear more apples hitting the ground.

Thump. Thump. Thumpidy thump thump.

Ugh.

It’s a never ending job, I tell you!

Yesterday, it was all I could do to not walk over to the garage, fire up the chainsaw and take the sucker down.

Crabapples, the fruit from heck

I was so close.

What stopped me?

If I would have cut it down, I still would have had to pick up all the stupid apples. Plus the branches. And leaves.

And there’s the whole not being able to pull the starter rope on the chainsaw thing.

OK, I guess I am a crabapple hater.

Do you have crabapples trees? Or have you mastered pulling the starter rope and gotten rid of the demons?

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Comments

  1. No crabapple trees here, so it’s hard for me to be a hater. But Cherry Blossom trees? So, so pretty but also such a pain. When the wind blows those pretty pink blooms off the trees, they stick to everything. Once, they even dyed the bottom of our boat pink in spots. I thought it was great! My husband? Not so much.

    ~Erica

  2. Your post gives us all insight as to why they’re called CRAB apples, Pam! hehe At least you didn’t get bonked on the head with one! If you have a neighbor with horses, they’d probably be happy to take those pails of apples off your hands. In fact, maybe they could just send the horses over for a snack and save you the trouble of picking the apples up…….but then again, you’d be picking up an entirely different kind of “apples”. Hmmmm.

    Thanks for my morning laugh, Pam!

    • I never once thought about feeding horses with them. I guess they would like them. Good call about the other “apples”. I would have traded one problem for another smellier one 🙂

  4. What do you do with the picked up crab apples? If you knew a pig farmer, they might like the “feed.” I think there are versions of crabs that just bloom but don’t bear fruit. Maybe if you cut enough branches in the spring (awesome photo, btw), you can whittle that sucker down and replant with a non-bearing crab? Okay, none of this is probably helpful, but I feel your pain. My parents used to have butternut trees. My dad paid the grandkids a penny apiece to pick them up, and they did!

  6. I’m smiling at this post. I can totally related. We have a messy crab apple tree in our yard and it drives me absolutely NUTS! I’ve slipped a zillion times on top of those blasted apples.

  7. I think I am crabbiest about our crab apple tree every Aug. and Sept. The apples begin to fall off the trees and the squirrels love to take one bite out of every single one. THEN the bees come to add even more fun. I love bees. We have many many flowers in the yard and a veg garden, so I welcome the bees….. However, every year myself and/or others in the family, when walking outside in sandal feet, step on one of those apples w/ an angry bee and get a nasty sting. The blossoms are beautiful in May, but they are such a mess in Aug. thru Oct.

  10. In my younger days when I could pull the chainsaw I cut down what I didn’t like. These days everything stays. I do not like crabapples either. Good luck.

  11. Oh my this made me laugh big time. I mean the part about your “job” and not seeing any actual “money” for your hard work…how true is that. I think I have many such jobs. It has to be annoying not being able to do much with the apples although this year we picked up apples that fell off our neighbors apple tree that they just let rot and fall to the ground and we made apple pies with them. – I’d say though that those blooms would be worth keeping the tree around as they really were gorgeous.

  12. We had one for years, then the hurricaine last year toppled it over. Can’t say I was sad to see it go. we used a rake to pull them into a pile then a shovel to scoop them up.

    I do miss the blooms for cutting though.

    Leann

  13. We dont have crap apple trees but we do have hedge apples. They are great to make a fall display with but the dang things are everywhere and if one lands on your head it will knock you out (they are big and heavy!)

  15. Try putting a tarp under your tree and shaking the apples out of the tree. Its easy to bundle up the tarp and either pick through the apples or dispose of them.

  16. I have a crabapple tree in my driveway. The apples are constantly falling in the summer and fall! I had been picking them up by hand, then taking them into a pile and picking them up with a snow shovel; I just recently found an apple broom on Amazon. It is a wire basket with a gaps and a long handle. Roll the basket over the apples and they are contained in the basket; then open up a gap a little wider and shake the apples out. ITs $59 but worth every penny for me!

  17. I have found a helpful answer to my 2 crabapple trees. My husband says to just leave them on the ground. I can’t, I hate to mow and walk all over them, they also bring a lot of flies around this time of year. Raking (good exercise mind you) is what I wanted to try to avoid. I tried my shop-vac (takes too long), tried some deer fencing material (too weak, weight of crab apples tore the net). This year I had success. I used a sturdier netting with small enough holes (Tenax hardware fence, 3X15 roll and tied them together every couple of ft with twist ties, I didn’t have zip ties handy at the time) around my tree on the ground. I mowed down short first, then played fencing down right before crab apples started to fall. Worked beautifully. Rolled my pieces up and they are ready for next year. Should be less labor intensive since most my rolls are pieced together (Tenax didn’t make larger rolls in the weight I needed). Hope this helps ease the battle of the crab apples! 🙂

    • That is genius! I’m definitely doing that next year! I had to laugh at your shop-vac idea though. Tried that. Thought my husband was going to have a stroke when he saw me using it on the apples 🙂

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