For a little while there I was worried 2018 was going to be another 2016. Hot and extremely dry. But fortunately we got a little rain in the beginning of the week, and it looks like we are going to get a lot of rain this weekend.We certainly need it! We were about to start irrigating some of our older apple trees, which only need water when it’s really dry because their roots reach so deep. However, thanks to all this rain, we can focus our irrigation efforts on the fruits and vegetables with more shallow roots. Above is our irrigation gun attached to a reel. It’s watering the mums that were just planted, and then it will be watering the first four plantings of sweet corn as it is “reeled” in. When nature doesn’t make it rain, sometimes farmers have to. Water plays a huge role in the quality of fruit. Too much can make it soft, too little can make it small. And flavor can also be affected by how much water the plant is given.
The chrysanthemums have been planted! In this picture I am watering the pots after our guys plant them. They have a great system down, and it only takes a few hours to plant a couple thousand plants. After the mum is placed in the pot, it has to be watered with a good amount of force so that the soil fills in around the roots and makes it feel right at home. This group of mums was our first planting, and we will get a second planting in a short time to finish filling up the mat.
Friday Fruit Update
Everything has really been moving along with all the heat we’ve had. The cherries are almost ready to pick! Some cherries in a different orchard are even darker than the one pictured here. The apples have lost their fuzz, and each variety is now starting to develop its unique shape. This is the time of year where we go through the apple and plum orchards and thin. Thinning is just what it sounds like, removing the apples when there are too many on the tree. Each tree only can give so much energy to its fruit, so we try to make sure it’s the right amount. Notice the word try, nature has her own way with the trees that we can not predict. So we do the best we can, and hope mother nature doesn’t change it too much.
Thanks for reading everyone, and happy growing!