Fruit Trees Spring 2013

Well, it has been a weird spring as far as the weather.  We had frosty cold nights (down to -5°F) a few times and a week of +30°F weather.  The last week, we had lots of rain - enough to half-fill the small wheelbarrow.

I went out to check on how the fruit is coming and found both good and bad news.

Next to no peaches.  Last year we had so many that I had to thin them out.  The late frost happened when the trees were blooming so no peaches.  :(

 

The apricot tree in the back is loaded - even with Barry's severe pruning this year.  He cut the tree back quite a bit to shorten it so we don't have to climb so high on the ladder to pick the fruit.

 

We are going to have lots of plums.  They seem to be very hardy as we have had an abundance of plums each year.

 

Look at the poor cherries!  :(  They are so scarce, we didn't even bag the trees against the cherry fruit fly this year.  it was too much work for so few cherries.  The frost hit the cherry blossoms as well as the peaches this year.  :(

 

It looks like the apple crop will be good.  I will be soon thinning out the apples so the fruit gets bigger.  I'd rather have fewer but larger fruit than lots of small apples.

 

The pears are plentiful and will need thinning as well.

 

Here is the second apricot tree which is loaded like the other tree.  It'll be the year for apricot juice and jam.