Fallen fruit with a few small brown spots does not always have to end up in the compost. Here are 4 tips on how to use fallen fruit.
The first fallen fruit already falls from the trees in early summer. Reasons for this are often light storms or wormy and overripe fruits. However, you can usually use the fallen fruit that has fallen on the ground sensibly. The fruit only has to be collected by hand or, more simply, with a fruit collector (roller collector). It would be a shame to just throw away the fruit. Here are a few tips on how you can still make good use of the fallen fruit.4 tips for the sensible use of fallen fruit
Tip 1 - use fallen fruit as fertilizer
Unripe and also rotten fallen fruit should be placed directly on the compost where it will rot rather quickly. The advantage: when the fallen fruit has rotted, you can put it back on the beds later (like autumn leaves) and thus supply the soil with many valuable nutrients. In this way you can produce valuable fertilizer from the fallen fruit.
» Important: Fruit often also attracts insects on a compost, which is why you should cover it as much as possible (e.g. with freshly mown grass). Or you can use a special thermal composter for this.
You can also bury the fruits directly around trees and hedges so that they can release their nutrients as directly as possible to the individual plants while they are rotting. In this case, the nutrient release usually lasts for a whole year. You have to bury the fallen fruit as deep as possible so that the animals don't dig them up again.
Tip 2 - Juice the fallen fruit:
In late summer, fruit sometimes falls from the trees in droves, simply because they have reached their perfect state of maturity. You can still use most of the fallen fruit without any problems if you pick it up off the ground as quickly as possible so that it does not get brown spots (so-called fall dents). These dents rot very quickly and make the fruit unusable for further consumption.
You can then, for example, use this fruit to go to ago juice factory. They are happy to accept good fallen fruit for juicing. And fresh juice from your own garden tastes twice as good. Another tip: Put fallen apples in a smoothie maker with cinnamon and turn fallen fruit into delicious applesauce.
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Tip 3 - Boil down and pickle the fallen fruit, etc.
However, if you bring the fallen fruit into your kitchen quickly, you can of course also use it to cook delicious jam, chutneys or fruit puree. And if you like, you can also give away the finished delicacies afterwards. Such homemade gifts from the garden are always particularly well received.
But the fruits are of course also suitable for baking. You can also easily soak windfall fruit cut out in alcohol, which can then be used to make a tasty rum pot, for example. Or you put the fallen fruit in the normal way. So you always have delicious compote at home.
Tip 4 - use fallen fruit as animal feed
You can also use good fallen fruit as animal feed. And if you don't have any animals yourself, you can also give the fruit away. Many zoos and also some foresters are very grateful buyers of untreated fallen fruit.
But even the smallest creatures such as squirrels, birds and hedgehogs are happy about this tasty source of food. Just create a feeding place for the little animals in the garden.