Q: My apples have blotches on them and holes in the fruit. Can I do something about this next year?

• Jesse from Youngstown

A: Yes. You can limit some of the issues you are talking about with some cultural practices and by choosing the best varieties that have resistance to certain diseases. Insects can be difficult to manage, though, as spraying consistently can be a difficult task in the home garden. Knowing when to detect certain insects can help with control options.

Here are some of the easiest things implement to get started in growing better apples:

1. Prune, prune, prune — As the old sayings go “prune a fruit tree until it looks like you’ve pruned too much — then prune it some more.”

The tree should not be beautiful until you see that 5-inch-plus apple a few weeks before harvest. Air and sunlight are the two most important things in producing fruit and decreasing disease pressure in the orchard or within your single fruit tree.

Apple trees should be pruned to the central leader system. The first set of branches should be more than 18 inches off the ground.

2. Control disease — Does your tree lose lots of leaves every year? Are they covered in spots? Are there spots on the fruit that can be rubbed off? Then you have apple scab. This is the most destructive disease on apple trees.

First, practice good sanitation in the orchard. Clean up branches and dead leaves, falling leaves and such. There should not be any apple leaves left on the ground for winter. The disease survives on those leaves. Refer to OSU Extension Bulletins 780, Controlling Disease and Insects in Home Fruit Planting for details.

Second, plan before you buy a new tree (or replace your old one). Choose a variety that does not get apple scab. From Pristine to Gold Rush and Enterprise to Crimson Crips, you have lots of options. Find more at http://go.osu.edu/noscab.

3. Eliminate weeds — Trees in the forest don’t have weeds growing at their feet, do they? Thus, your home orchard shouldn’t have grass growing up to the trunk.

Use a bark mulch or compost to mulch out to the drip line (the furthest point that the branches past the trunk). This will help retain moisture and prevent the weeds from stealing moisture and nutrients from the tree. Putting newspapers under the mulch each spring will eliminate weeds for the entire season.

4. Fertilize properly — Using compost as your mulch is a good way to add extra nutrients to the soil. Simply look up the equivalent rates of N-P-K. If you are using other types of mulch, then fertilizers may be the best option. There are organic and conventional fertilizers to choose from.

A rule of thumb is to apply a balanced fertilizer with the equivalent of 1/10 pound of actual nitrogen per year of tree age. Apply the fertilizer in early spring.

5. Know the main insects — From plum curculio to the codling moth and everything in between, there are many insects that affect our apples. None of these are easy to control, but you can learn more about the insects and their life cycles to determine their impacts on apples and the ones you might pay the most attention to when it comes to your apple crop.

For details on insect control and organic production, go to http://go.osu.edu/organicapples.

For more on growing apples at home, go to http://go.osu.edu/applesathome.

Barrett is the Ohio State University Extension educator for agriculture and natural resources in Mahoning County. Call the extension office hotline, 330-533-5538, 9 a.m. to noon Mondays and Thursdays to submit your questions.