Dog days of summer

It has been a very hot summer here in central Florida, but what else is new? Well the last week or so has been, as usual, hot and muggy with very little rain. The orchard is past a milestone, by that I mean it is well over a year in the ground. I am starting to see some signs of growth in the caliper of the oldest trees planted and total height of the trees. The orchard is next door to my house so normally I see it on a daily basis, however after having a good amount of rain in the last month I have had a break from watering. When a week or so goes by and I don't make it into the orchard I can see a big change in the size of the trees. I think they are beginning to become established and for that I am grateful. 

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)

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.

Early apples

Well it is hard to believe that in early March I could say that I have apples on my dorsett and anna trees. That means that sometime in June I will be picking my first apples. Some of my trees are completely asleep and others are putting on apples.  Many of the bloom clusters got an apple on every bloom, however you will notice that the clusters that have an apple just on the king blooms are the largest apples. It was a very strange winter this year with an extreme at every turn, hopefully we can start to average out and leave this unusual weather behind us. Anyway I hope you enjoy this short video clip of a couple of my apple trees with early apples.

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.

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...

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.