Maggoty Apples, Pears? The Culprit will be the Codling Moth

The Codling Moth is the most likely cause of what is often referred to as 'Maggoty Apples and Pears'. The Caterpillar of this insect species will damage the majority, if not all of the fruit on Apple and Pear trees in your garden, if you let them! The Codling Moth is also found in Walnut and Quince, although rare compared to Apple and Pear.

The Caterpillar will bore it's way into the fruit during mid to late Summer and all you see on the outside is a tiny hole with a little pile of excrement. Cut the fruit in half and you will see the tunnel created by the Caterpillar en-route to the core where the white culprit (brown head) can often be found.

Cure the problem of Codling Moth by using Pheromone traps (the pheromone is a scent similar to that produced by virgin females) hung in trees, and/or spraying in the second or third week of June repeated again two or three weeks later. If you get it wrong you will know by the end of September because fruit on every apple and pear tree in your garden will be affected.

The easy, cheap and environmentally acceptable way to deal with Slugs and Snails James is to save your egg shells throughout the year.

Crush them to something just short of dust and then sprinkle it liberally around the young plants. If you put it down thick enough, they won't crawl over the crushed egg shell.

Apricots, Apples, Cherries, Pears are all coming along nicely with Raspberries, Gooseberries and Strawberries (some of which I planted off the ground in hanging baskets this year) are looking equally healthy.

Even the Fig tree is showing good early growth this year so a lot of fruit all round I reckon. Maybe a good year for wine making?

Hmmn, now there's a thought.

So far, so good with the Pears looking okay at the moment.

The Pears are looking their very best so it may well be that the treatment worked.

Yippee, I love a nice Pear...

The Pears have done very well and there is no sign of the Codling Moth and/or Maggots so the treatment earlier in the year as documented in the posts above has worked very well indeed.