Why the orchard can police itself

A family orchard is a different creature to a commercial block. You have a handful of trees, a bit of rough grass, a hedge or a fence line, and no need for every single apple to be flawless. That is a huge advantage, because it means you can stop fighting nature and start hiring it. Encouraging birds, hedgehogs and predatory insects does not give you instant results, but after a season or two of sensible housekeeping you will notice fewer curled leaves, fewer maggoty windfalls and far less reason to reach for a spray. The aim is not elimination. It is a balance in which the predators do the tedious work and you do the interesting bits.

Bring in the birds

Blue tits are the single best ally an apple grower has. A single pair will work a canopy relentlessly through late spring, taking caterpillars, aphids and the small grubs that would otherwise spoil your crop. Put up a few nest boxes with 25–32mm entrance holes, face them between north and east so they do not bake, and mount them about two metres up with a clear flight line in. Do not hang bird feeders right beside the trees — you want the birds hunting in the branches, not queueing at a seed dispenser. Leave a stretch of rough hedgerow and ivy somewhere on the boundary, and a shallow dish of water for drinking and bathing. Sparrows and finches will also pick over buds in hard weather, so keep an eye out in a late frost.

Hedgehogs, beetles and the ground patrol

The creatures working the grass and the soil surface are doing quieter but equally valuable work.

• Leave a 13cm gap under gates and fences so hedgehogs can move through. They will take slugs and leatherjackets all night long.
• Build a log pile in a corner. Ground beetles live there, and they hunt codling moth larvae as the caterpillars drop down the trunk to pupate.
• Tolerate a patch of nettles and long grass at the base of the hedge — it is accommodation for beetles, centipedes and slow worms.
• Never use slug pellets around the orchard. Metaldehyde is gone from garden shelves in the UK, but any pellet is bad news for hedgehogs and thrushes.

Codling moth: barriers and grease bands

This is the pest that puts the little tunnel and the brown frass at the core of your fruit. The female moth lays eggs on the leaves and young fruitlets in June and July. The caterpillar hatches, chews into the apple, feeds, then leaves and lowers itself or crawls down to pupate in bark crevices or in the debris at the base of the tree. Break that cycle and you have broken the moth.

• Corrugated cardboard bands: tie a 10cm-wide strip of corrugated card around the trunk in mid-June, corrugations facing in. The larvae crawl in to pupate. Take it off in late September and burn it or put it in the bin — never the compost heap.
• Grease bands: apply around mid-October, about 45cm up the trunk. Use a paper or tape band coated in horticultural grease. These stop the wingless females of winter moth, mottled umber and March moth climbing the trunk to lay eggs on the buds. Re-grease in February and remove in May.
• Hand-picking: from late June, walk the trees weekly and remove any fruit with a tell-tale entry hole or a bead of brown frass. Drop them in a bucket of water for the chickens, not on the ground.
• Autumn clean-up: rake up fallen fruit and leaves from beneath the trees, and scrape loose bark on old trees over a sheet. This is where next year's moths are sleeping.

A pheromone trap hung in May is worth the small cost, not to control the moth but to tell you when it is flying, so you know when hand-picking matters most.

Aphids and their predators

Rosy apple aphid curls the leaves in May and stunts the shoots; woolly aphid makes white fluff on the branches in late summer. Both are far easier to live with once lacewings, hoverflies, ladybirds and earwigs are on the payroll. Sow or plant umbellifers — dill, fennel, cow parsley, poached egg plant — and a strip of phacelia near the trees to feed the adults of these insects. A rolled-up piece of corrugated card hung in a branch makes a fine earwig shelter, and earwigs eat aphids by the dozen. Avoid rich nitrogen feeds and heavy winter pruning, which push soft sappy growth that aphids adore; summer-prune instead to open up the canopy. For woolly aphid, scrub the affected branches with a stiff brush in winter, or blast the colonies with a hose in summer.

Slugs, hand-picking and the last resort

Slugs attack young grafts, low-hanging fruit and new shoots. Go out with a torch after rain and pick them off by hand; it is grimly satisfying and remarkably effective. A hollowed-out half grapefruit placed cut side down makes a trap, as does a board laid on damp soil. Keep the grass short around the trunks so there are no daytime hiding places, and wrap the trunk of a young tree with copper tape if the damage is severe. Thrushes, toads and hedgehogs will finish the job.

Keep your tolerance high. Scab, a little codling damage, the odd wasp sting — none of it matters in a cider apple, and even dessert fruit can be cut around. If you must intervene, do it at dusk, target only the affected tree, and never spray while the trees are in blossom. Remember that even the gentlest organic spray will kill the predators you have spent two years encouraging. Decide early that some losses are part of the deal, press the damaged fruit within a day or two of picking, and your orchard will repay you with a healthier crop each year.