Mad Tom Orchard

There are lots of small green raspberries on the bushes – they will be ready shortly after the 4’th of July – I will post again as we see how fast they ripen.

Cherry crop is good this year – they will be best after the middle of July – watch the web for latest info.

Apples are now about 1 inch in diameter – we are waiting to see how well the weak acid thinning spray we put on 10 days ago is working – it looks like we will get a good crop, but not so many that the fruit will be small and we will get a good number of fruit buds form in July for next year’s crop.

The new fruit trees we planted this spring are doing well – the recent rains have helped build up the soil moisture after the very dry month of May when we had to irrigate almost all the time.  In our spare time we have been mowing, weeding raspberries and moving rocks to make mowing easier.

We will open for raspberry picking on Friday July 10 at 9:00 AM – come early in the day for best picking – there are lots of berries, but as usual they do not ripen all at once.

We hope to be open Saturday, but check the web before you come – the last two years the ripe berries were picked the first day.  Almost for sure we will be closed on Sunday and Monday for more berries to ripen by Tuesday.

Look forward to seeing folks on Friday.

COME SEE THE BLOOM – blossoms are fully out and will be for the next few days.  Green bumble bee hives are out on pallets with a sunshade.

The gate behind the barn next to the water tank is unlatched for easy access.  You are welcome to walk out in the orchard – you can smell the blossoms throughout the orchard.

We will be planting more trees today and tomorrow.

The HOT!! weather has brought all the apple varieties into bloom at almost the same time.  Usually the different varieties stretch out over  a week or more, but not this year.

We are at peak bloom now and we will begin to see petal fall by the weekend.  Our bumble bees come tomorrow, but there have been lots of native honey bees and bumble bees out working yesterday.

The “crew” has been busy planting more trees and putting down more irrigation lines.  40 more trees come tomorrow.

The warm weather is moving the bloom closer – right now the leaves are at “1/2 inch green” and the buds are at “tight cluster” – see picture below.  There are lots of fruit buds.

Bloom will probably come mid to late next week – our bumble bees arrive on Wednesday – often we get cold rainy weather for bloom – we will see what happens this year.

The very long cold winter did not harm the trees – heavy snow usually does not break branches – the branches get strong when carrying the fruit in the fall.

We finished  our pruning on April 28.   120 new trees have arrived and are in the cool room until we get them planted – even found time to bring up a little firewood for next winter.