Although I haven't tried either tool you identified, you may consider
using a pruning tool along with your basket tool. This assumes you may
be able to extend the basket below the fruit that you clip off with the
pruner. Pruners come with poles of a variety of lengths.

Another thought is to build up some semi-permanent benches or ladders
that can be kept in the same place throughout the season.

Enjoy your oranges. Oranges will be in short supply this year on the
market because of the frost in California. You may be able to sell
some of them for a little extra spending cash.

Careful with the ladders!


LurfysMa wrote:
I have an orange tree that produces decent oranges. Every year, I have
a battle getting the oranges from any but the lowest branches.

Two years ago, I bought one of those pickers with the wire basket,
like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Fruit-Picker-W...6?ie=UTF8&s=hi

It works more or less, but there are problems. The claws can be
difficult to use, especially if the fruit is close to a branch or
another orange. On my tree, the oranges tend to cluster. It doesn't
really grab the fruit so I have to pull down pretty hard in order to
be able to apply any twisting motion at all. Sometimes I end up
tearing off part of the branch. This shakes the tree and causes other
oranges to fall and get bruised.

I just did another search and the only thing I came up with is this
one:

http://www.amazon.com/Fruit-Picker-t...28da1 7020204

It looks like it might work better.

Has anyone used it? Care to share experiences? It gets good reiews on
Amazon.

Does anyone have a better idea or pointer?

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