2015 fruit tree flowers running a little slow
When
extreme winter cold nips the peach bloom buds before they can even
start to swell, spring feels very slow in coming. But I think we're only
running about three or four days behind last year,
based on the emergence date of the first nanking cherry flower (April
9) and pear blossom (April 10). That sets us perhaps two weeks behind
some much warmer springs...which might mean our tree flowers will
sidestep the freezes of dogwood and blackberry winters.
This is the time of year
when it's so hard not to count your fruits before they set. My rule of
thumb with perennials flowering for the first time is that they won't
keep their developing flowers all the way to fruition unless there are
dozens of blooms present. That means the crazy Kidd's Orange Red apple
tree, who appears to have a clump of bloom buds despite having only been
grafted this time last year, has almost no chance of setting fruit. But
the Seckel pear, with dozens of flower buds in evidence even though the
tree hadn't bloomed before, might just make my day sometime this fall.
Of
course, there's enough going on in the vegetable garden right now that I
really shouldn't be wasting time drooling over fruit-tree flowers. We
enjoyed our first spring salad Thursday and raab is finally popping up with its broccoli-like cooking opportunities. To celebrate, the second cookbook in my Farmstead Feast series will go live tomorrow and will be free for one day only. Be sure to check back and download your copy!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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We still have a foot of snow in the orchard. Unless there's a lot of catching up between now and the end of the month I think the cherries will be quite late this year.
I was happy to have found you this morning while blog hopping. I'll be back to read more when I take a break from working in the high tunnel.