Apple tree help

My husband and I are apple tree amateurs. But the home we purchased almost a year ago has 3 fully grown apple trees, 2 of one type that I cannot remember and 1 of another type that I cannot remember (they're all red though), that are at least 20-25 years old. By the time we really moved in and had time to pay attention to the yard, the apple trees had finished blooming and had started producing little tiny apples, so we opted to just leave them alone and see what they would do. Last year they produced tons and tons of apples, not many of which we wanted to keep since they were pretty buggy and just were generally unappetizing.

Now that it's mid-March, and we are fully settled in the house and have time to pay attention to our trees, we would like to learn how to properly take care of them so that we can actually get some good apples! I know that it's pretty early to actually do anything, but we want to be ready and know what to do when the time comes. We truly know nothing when it comes to fruit tress. Can anyone suggest a good book or resource that will give us simple directions for how to care for these trees? Or if anyone can give us a quick rundown of what we should do, that would be greatly appreciated :-)

I am guessing that the trees are likely large full sized trees that are not well pruned...perhaps for many years?

If these things are so, I suggest opening up the center on top of the tree to let in light. This likely includes some heavy pruning up there. If the branches are thick around the outside of the tree, it would help to remove some crowed ones. This pruning could be done right now. Summer pruning is for fine tuning.

Most apple trees need dormant oil spraying with fungicide before leafing out. Then in this part of the country you will need an insect program. Also you will likely need to thin the apples while still small unless the fruit set is small.

An insect program would be either a regular spraying with commercial sprays, bagging the apples with footies or ziplock bags with a tiny lower corner vent, or coating the apples with Surround clay spray.

Also you need to pick up and remove fallen apples.

All in all it is work to get nice apples!

organic apple care:

http://doityourself.com/info/growapplesnaturally.htm

It is not too early, but in your climate not late either. The first step is pruning. http://ceinfo.unh.edu/Pubs/HGPubs/caremat.pdf http://landscaping.about.com/cs/fruittreesbushes/a/apple_trees_4.htm I like to apply a dormant oil spray just before the tree breaks dormancy. Many of the summer problems can be handled easily by proper application of home orchard spray. Some control can be handled by other methods, but they are more labor intensive. http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/fruit_veg_diary/fruit_veg_mini_project_september_2f_apple.asp http://gardening.wsu.edu/column/06-10-01.htm http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1401.html

I think that they are in pretty good shape pruning-wise, because the previous owner really babied these trees. They were transplants from his orchard in Northern Michigan. Unfortunately, he passed away and was unable to leave us any information on the trees. We've just been going from the information we can gather from our neighbors.

I could not believe how many apples we had on the ground last year! They were EVERYWHERE! Even though we did not want to eat many of them, my mom's horse was absolutely thrilled. I think he was ready to move in to our house just to be near these trees :-)

This picture shows the trees in early October of last year. We had a family gathering, so the tree pictures come with children poking out from several angles :-)

And this is a picture that I just took. It's tough to get a good shot since everything is still gray and blends in to the background.

One problem I can see is a lack of sun. This makes for long slender branches and small apples.

Oops, I should have mentioned what light the trees receive. They receive mostly S-SW sun, though the last one in the line (near the utility boxes) does get shaded by our neighbor's poplar trees. The front two tend to get a lot of sun, almost a full day.

The trees are much smaller than my mental picture of them was, and the owner has kept the tops more open. Just maintain that basic framework by summer pruning.

Thank you all for your advice!

The trees seem so large during the growing season because we cannot reach much of the growth, but when you look at them at this time of year, they really don't seem so big and imposing. They stayed really nice looking until around mid-December. There were still some red apples in the branches and all of our Thanksgiving guests enjoyed seeing something bright and cheery on what was a pretty cold and grey day.

It looks like our next step is to figure out exactly what we need to spray our trees with, when to do it, and how to do it. There are a couple of big nurseries pretty close by and I know that one of them at least sells some apple trees. I'm hoping that they can recommend when exactly we should do it in this area, or even better, someone to actually do the spraying. We're so bad at this kind of thing lol. We even found a cheap lawn service (well, they kind of found us with their offers of cheap labor!) that comes and applies all of the fertilizers and whatnot that a good lawn should have during the year. If only everything was that easy! :-)