Saturday, June 5, 2010

Tree Crop Failure

This spring on the wet coast has been unusually wet for prolonged periods and the tree fruit crop on Lotus Island is almost non-existent.I see a pitiful apple crop on the Gravensteins,Transparent and Red Delicious. Cox's Orange has nothing. The Italian prune plums are completely free of any fruit. Same with the Damson and Victoria plum though they don't perform well for me in any year. I suppose I should follow the Biblical suggestion and dung the plums for three years and give them the heave-ho if they don't produce. The pears have a few fruits as they seem to tolerate the wet a little better. Clapp's Favorite is early and caught the warm weather in the two weeks of April and has some fruit but Bartlett, Angou, and Conference have little or none. They bloom later.A few Montmorency cherries are present. The sweet Cherries we never get because of the birds. I'm not whining about all of this since the processing of that much fruit is a lot of work and now I don't need to feel guilty about wasting the product. All the small fruits, which are doing OK, will keep us busy. THere is no shortage of bees at the moment since the weather has now turned, but too late! I don't blame them for not working in the rain. I understand they don't really care about my apple appetite. It is just that I need them because apple pollen is too heavy for the wind and needs the bees to lug it from tree to tree. I guess the old farmer adage about it always being a next year season is true. Just give it a rest! Hope springs eternal!

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