Hi Felice,
Your name sounds familiar, but I can't recall where I saw your husband's name.
Maybe it was from NAFEX. Any ways, picking unripened apples will give you a
fruit which is lacking the usual sugars that sweeten an apple. Only pears can be
picked this way and ripen well off the tree. We use netting and trapping of squirrels
on our apple trees. You can effectively stop them climbing up the trees if you put an
inverted 'cone collar' around the trunks. If there are nearby high structures, they will
simply jump onto the trees from there. A dog or cat might help.
No suggestions for processing the green apples, as texture also becomes a problem with unrippened
fruit.

Sherwin D. (Midwest Fruit Explorers-Midfex)

Felice Friese wrote:

I have 4 small apple trees from Stark (2 colonnades and 2 "other") that are
finally, this year, bearing apples in abundance. The squirrels usually get
them before they are ripe, and I wonder if instead of netting the trees I
can pick the apples while they are green and ripen them inside away from the
creatures. Any suggestions? If not, is there anything I can do with green
ones? Last year I made a pomander of one, but dozens of pomanders would mean
a fortune in whole cloves and two wrecked thumbs.

I don't really care for apples all that much, but my husband planted them
before he died and I feel obligated to care for them on his behalf!

Felice