How to store apples

[Karen Atkinson]

Everything I ve read says wrap apples in black n white newspaper to store. All newsprint today incorporates colour whis is toxic. Alternative ways of storing anyone?

[Karen Atkinson]

[Palustris]

We collect the apple boxes and the inserts from Supermarkets. The inserts keep the apples separate without the need for wrapping in any way. They need to be kept frost free, but cold and vermin free too. When we wrapped our apples we lost a lot to rotting. Better to have them visible so any which do go can be removed quickly.

[Digeroo]

I thought they had taken the toxins out of newspaper colour and used soya based inks nowadays.  However I can find no actual formal confirmation on this on line.  The best I can find is that most inks are soya based. 

[goodlife]

Newspaper is bit fiddly and particularly if you are wrapping each individual apple with it as many instruction recommend...don't know about ink.
I don't separate mine individually..but after couple layers of apples I place old towel and sheet of bubble wrap and once my storage box/basket is full it gets old duvet thrown over.
It is important that the apples are able 'breath'..so thick 'cloth' materials are good. My apples usually keep well under duvet and in unheated shed. If we get really cold weather, like we had couple years ago..few weeks frost and snow..admittedly I lost fair bit for majority getting frozen..solid. Birds did have a good feast.

[Robert_Brenchley]

There are no heavy metals in modern inks, so there's no need to worry.

[shirlton]

We have no apples to store this year because we had to leave them all behind when we moved plots but I would never store them again. We lost such a lot even after diligently checking them. When I saw some going off I froze them raw but when I went to cook them they were not nice so when mine start producing (hopefully next year) I am going to cook and freeze and use from the freezer.

[galina]

I thought they had taken the toxins out of newspaper colour and used soya based inks nowadays.  However I can find no actual formal confirmation on this on line.  The best I can find is that most inks are soya based.

According to HDRA lecture some years ago - there are no concerns using newspapers for any gardening purpose, because the inks are no longer toxic.  Wrapping apples, tomatoes, making pots, putting into compost bin as 'brown' material, using in the wormbin as bedding etc, all this is considered safe.

[galina]

Everything I ve read says wrap apples in black n white newspaper to store. All newsprint today incorporates colour whis is toxic. Alternative ways of storing anyone?

Frost free or nearly frost free storage.  We store in the flat cardboard trays from the supermarket.  Apple inserts are best, but we never have enough.  We don't wrap.

There are apple varieties that naturally store well and others that don't.  It is worth finding out which is which and use them in the order they last.  Nursery catalogues usually give this information.  One of our apples Mutsu aka Crispin stores well into spring, another Discovery does not store at all off the tree.  The others are somewhere inbetween.   

All this is academicfor us this year unfortunately, because the trees didn't get pollinated and the overall harvest was around 5 pounds.  Good to hear that you have apples to store, spudcounter.

[goodlife]

No..I don't have any to store this year neither..I picked about 3 dozen apples for us to eat out of all my trees..8 cookers and what is left in tree for birds are all little 'strugglers' that are not worth of trouble for us...must leave some for wild life too.

[Palustris]

We have about 500 lbs of apples in store this year, about a 1/3 down on normal. A lot of the early ones were very badly Scabbed, but these we peel, purée and freeze.
Fewer apples on the trees but bigger individual fruits, the weather thinned out the fruit for me.
As said, you need to know the storing capabilities of the variety. For example Sunset will store for a short time whereas Ashmead's Kernel will keep for much longer.
If you do want to store, then you need to pick a little underripe  so that they ripen in store.

[Karen Atkinson]

Thanks for the replies. I Will hv to look and see what variety it is. I bpught it from Aldi on the spur of the moment two years ago not expecting anything and it's produced about 40 apples so far.It was only £2.99 so I can't complain. I've picked them now, checked them over and separated them from one another. They are under an old towel.