Sunday, September 16, 2012
Apple surprise
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Dog days of summer
Sunday, April 29, 2012
A season of apple blossom
"Soft and gentle on my mind the apple blossom comes in spring, and every year nature does endear his creation will always sing. Though the wind come and hard rain, the blossom come still the same. Its a wonder and delight because it shows his power and might, not drought on record, rain and wind, his creation will always bend."
-Tony Loftin
(video by Stephen Hayes, Fruitwise Heritage Apples, UK., fruitwise.net)
-Tony Loftin
(video by Stephen Hayes, Fruitwise Heritage Apples, UK., fruitwise.net)
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Fruit thinning apples
Well it has been a while, much warm weather and very dry weather here in Central Florida. It is April already, mater of fact its the middle of April and things seem to be drier than normal. I am hand watering in the orchard to keep my fruit trees from burning up. Several of my apple trees put on fruit and, in many clusters, it is to much for the small limbs to carry. So even though it just kills me to do it I have today just decided to thin the clusters of apples to one or two apples per cluster. These fruits are just perfect and it seems to be wrong to do it, however if this is not done then the young trees with smaller limbs will just strain and possibly break under the load of many apples. Hopefully the trees will use some of their vigor to grow heavier wood for next years apples and it will have been for a good purpose.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Early apples
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Apples in many stages of bloom
I have found that this year with one day at 87F and the next day at 50F my apple trees are very confused. This confusion has some of my apple trees still sleeping deeply, yet others are waking up, and still others are at various stages of bloom. With the Dorsett variety being the first to wake up and having many blooms before the Anna slowly deciding to come alive, cross pollination has been varied at best. Some fruit set has occurred, however it is very light at best. I could take it upon myself to make a trip into the orchard and make things happen by doing the work of the bees and use a feather or some other device and force the issue, but that is not my style. After all I am not doing this for a living this is just for fun and if my apple trees don't get a heavy fruit set then I guess that will have to be.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Do you feel lucky
Well I could start this post with how inconsistent the weather has been, hot temps everyday, very very dry, and did I mention how dry it is lately. I cannot remember a winter like this one has been, however with all of its shortcomings I have good news to report. That's right as I am sitting here in my chair, darkness has fell, and what do I hear on the roof? Its raining! Do you feel lucky? I do...
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Apple blooms
I am going into my second leaf here in the low chill orchard and already have a show. I do not have anything to compare it with, however I am sure that having apple blossoms in the first weekend of February is unusual. Now don't get me wrong the trees in my orchard are not full of blooms and I guess you can have some blossoms at anytime thru the year when you live in a place like central Florida. It has only been a couple of weeks that I put my trees to sleep as you can see from a previous post but it seems I may be on my way to an early spring.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Visitor to low chill orchard
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Putting my apple trees to sleep
Happy New Year everyone! This year has given some serious cold weather that is very unusual for central Florida. Just as I was beginning to think that winter was nowhere in sight, wham! a hard freeze here in the Low Chill Orchard. I had temps all the way down to 27F and for a very extended time thru the night. The apple trees in my backyard orchard were hit a little off guard and some of the leaves were damaged. I made an executive decision to just go by hand and pick every leaf off of the trees to force the trees into dormancy. After removing the leaves I also mixed 1oz. of copper spray to a gallon of water in my pump sprayer and lightly coated each tree after some detail winter pruning of course. So for now I say good night to my trees for what is started as an unusual winter.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Cold temps on the way!
A couple of days ago I posted that my lemon tree was in full bloom and I was not kidding. I also said that the temps were running above normal, again not kidding! I posted a video today on YouTube as to how great of a day it was mild, maybe cool, but surely not cold. Now look out!, out of nowhere here comes the cold. Low temps in the morning tomorrow are set to hit 29F. Now someone will read this and say 29F is not cold, well remember this is central Florida you know the sunshine state. Let me be the first to tell you if you don't already know. That is cold for here!!!! Don't misunderstand it has been colder, but to go from one extreme to the other on a dime will shake things up around here. I am sure that tomorrow Home Depot will be sold out of space heaters. Now I know why I see the robins all over the yard today. Anyway not much to do other than go with the flow.
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