Benedict T. Palen, Jr Clears The Concept Of Fruit Bagging

 There are some fruit trees that offer a scene of beauty for every season. It starts in the spring with the pretty blossoms and ends in autumn with a showy fall beauty. Instead of all that, at the end of the day, every gardener wants their fruit trees to bear ripe and juicy fruits. However, common plant diseases, insects, and birds can end up ravaging your precious crop. This is the main reason why many of the gardeners have started growing their fruits in bags.

So, should you follow suit and put bags on the fruit? Here’s what Benedict T. Palen, Jr, an experienced farmer, has to say in the matter.

Should you start bagging the fruits?

At the time of planting the fruit trees in the backyard, your plan was not to start growing the fruits in bags. However, you might not have comprehended back then about the amount of maintenance the fruit trees would need. For instance, commercial farmers who want to get blemish-free, beautiful apples, spray the apple trees often and too early with fungicides and pesticides.

They start spraying the apples in early spring or late winter, and keep repeating it every week through the harvest. It might be more work than you have expected to do and chemicals that you hoped to use on the trees. This is exactly where you start wondering whether you should bag the fruits or not.

Bagging the fruits makes sense if you consider the face that most of the diseases, birds, and even insects attack fruits from its outside. Putting bags on the fruits mean covering the young fruits with clean plastic bags before they start ripening. The bags offer a protective layer between the outside world and the soft fruit.

Benedict T. Palen, Jr believes that by growing the fruits in bags, you get to avoid all the spraying that is done to maintain their health. These plastic bags will prevent the diseases from attacking them, insects from deforming them, and birds from devouring them. It will not affect the growth of the fruits in any possible way.

Growing the fruits in plastic bags

The Japanese were the first people to have started bagging fruits. In fact, the Japanese have relied on using little bags for protecting fruits for centuries now. They initially used special silken bags that were made just for the fruits. But, some growers started using plastic bags, and they noticed that these bags worked fine too.

So, if you have decided to try this proven Japanese technique, here is the method you must follow. The best thing to use are zip lock bags. Try to choose the fruits that are still young and small, and cover each of them with the zip lock baggie. Zip the bag as closely around the stem as you can. Cut the lower corners of that bag to let moisture to drip down. Keep the zip lock bags on until the harvest time.