The orchards are saturated and the trees are standing in water. It is an understatement to say it has been a wet spring and so far a very wet summer. Above average rainfall with high humidity and foggy mornings is creating undesirable growing conditions. Trying to control scab, powdery mildew and unwanted insects has become a truly challenging job. We are making every effort to take care of the fruit and the trees and hope for a little more sun and a lot less rain at this point.
The Pick-Your-Own orchard is growing and plans are developing for opening it this season. There is good feed-back on the plans to date and looking forward to seeing patrons bring their children to see how fruit is grown and harvested.
Peaches are not going to be plentiful this season. More than what we had first thought but not many in terms of demand. The peach trees are suffering from these extreme wet conditions. Our clay soil does not drain so well and peach trees don’t tolerate “wet feet.” There will be numerous peach trees dying this year. Nothing much can be done to reverse phytophthora which is a soil-borne water mold that produces an infection in plants that is called “root rot” or “dieback.” Early symptoms include wilting, yellowing. Prevention is the key versus treatment after a plant is infected.
Light + Water + Warmth = Weeds. All these factors are present and so are the weeds. We continue in our efforts of “weed control,” using weed eaters in the older trees and actually pulling weeds from around the newly planted trees. It’s an eye roll when we tell the workers to get the weed eaters and “let’s go.”
Other than too much rain and too many weeds, the fruit development looks good and moving forward to another harvest season. Another six weeks and we hopefully will be seeing all of you at the markets.