It’s been a very good year for codling moths in our garden. I can’t say I’ve seen many of the moths themselves, but it’s obvious there are plenty of them. Each time I cut into one of the windfall apples I am met with a crumbling mouldy brown mass of caterpillar droppings in the chewed-out core.

I can imagine this might be very tiresome for the apple farmer, and not very pleasant on the tongue when biting into a nice juicy fruit. It bothers me less, because our apples are not actually very tasty. I’ve no idea what variety the apple tree is. It was in the garden when we arrived at our house, 12 years ago, the legacy of a previous owner, whose only other contributions to horticultural delight were chain-link fences and concrete.

I do, however, use the apples in crumble, cobbler, jam and chutney. So I can chop and remove all the pre-chewed, frass-polluted and maggoty parts. Delicious.

This is only the second year I have noticed significant numbers of bored apples. Perhaps this is because it is only the second year that we have had significant numbers of apples at all. Maybe our straggling poorly-fruiting tree was overlooked by the moths until our high-yield crop last year. They are now firmly established.

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