I second Jafar's guess that quarter-sized is too late.  I put my fruit sox on when the apples are a bit smaller than a dime.  Also I just twist the sox and tuck the twist into the sock vs. a twist tie or anything else. 

The sox do take time to install, and it can feel overwhelming to put a sock on every single apple. But as I have told others, you don't have to put a sock on every apple, you only have to put a sock on the apples that you want to eat 🙂

Throwing in my support for Ziplock sandwich bags with corners cut off. I've used them over several seasons with generally good success. The clear bags also let you see coloring as the apples get close to harvest.

I've had great success with the footies. This year I reused footies for a second time with no surround and they were almost as good. I think my biggest nemesis is apple maggot - the apples that got no footies were 100% inedible and with footies, 95% good. The few coddling moths that get through are minor and don't sway my plan to use more footies and strip all apples that don't get covered. Jim

Hi, HOS folks. I used the Surround-soaked footies from Ted for several years. We never used anything to fasten them, just twisted them around the stem. They worked great. With them, probably 95% of our apples were good. The one year we didn't use them, almost of the all apples were inedible and unusable, too riddled with pests to even try using. For the last couple years we tried buying the footies from Raintree and using them just plain, with no Surround. The first time, year before last, it went OK--the majority of the apples were good. Last year, disaster--almost as bad as no footies at all. 

So what I want to know is, is anybody soaking and drying the footies for sale? If not, where do you buy the Surround? How much Surround do you use per how much water? Do you just soak the footies, or do you do anything else to them (agitate, whatever)? I don't have a top-loading washing machine so can't do that. 

Oh--and where would you get thicker footies? The ones from Raintree are thin.

Hi, all. Reporting in. On May 7 I ordered 1,008 footies from Raintree (ordered before seeing Jafar's message, next time I'd get them from HOS) and 25 lbs of Surround--that was the smallest amt I could order--from Grow Organic. The Surround arrived a couple days later. The footies didn't arrive until about two days ago--16 days after I ordered them.

We took two yard buckets, those big plastic buckets everybody has, and in each bucket we put about 10 cups of Surround and a few gallons of water. I did not actually measure, but scooped the Surround out with a one-cup measure so I have a rough idea. We stirred the mixture well, dumped half the footies in each bucket, and then stirred some more. We left the buckets sitting there for about 24 hours, stirring whenever it occurred to us to do so. The clay settled into the bottom of the water pretty quickly after each stirring, but we just kept stirring it back up every so often. 

Yesterday we got out some old window screens and laid them on bricks on the shelves in our greenhouse. We stirred the footies again and then glopped them sopping wet onto the screens, spreading them out some for better drying. They are now drying in the greenhouse.

On Sunday, during thinning, the footies will be applied to our roughly dime-sized apples.

We have Rubinette apples and they tend to be later than most varieties so we're lucky that way--lots of other varieties would be too big by now.

To be continued...

I have tried a variety of devices in a variety of different areas in Seattle and this seems to be my observation:

    1.  If you are in an area where there is a high codling moth pressure then you need paper sacks or plastic bags.

     2.   If you have moderate codling moth pressure then you need the super-strong foot sox soaked in kaolin clay.

      3.   If you have low codling moth pressure then even weak foot sox will work.

    And the foot sox will always work for apple maggots.

I bought nylon footies and Surround from HOS earlier this year and followed the directions carefully, applying them to about 150 apples.  They had absolutely no effect.  Treated apples were just as likely to be damaged as untreated ones.  There were typically small holes through the footy right at the point of entry.

I have no doubt Penorman had the bad experience he reported.   My suspicion is that he just happens to be in a high codling moth population area.   So,  he either needs some sort of spray for the entire tree  or if he is to go individually on the apples he needs ziploc bags with slits to let the water out.....or #2 bleached white paper sacks.  If new apple trees ever get planted I might suggest  Spartan or Liberty as they seem to be naturally resistant to bugs.....(they get bugs but just not as badly as other varieties.)   One final note:   I can practically guarantee that the only damage Penorman had was from codling moth and not from apple maggot fly.....so if he cuts the bad section out,  he still has a better apple than if he had used no foot sox at all.