Spring again

Here we go again. Great time of year when all things come to life and the garden will bring a crop of fruit on. This year I was wondering if with the cycle of things might leave me without fruit. Some warm days followed by hard frost seemed to be the cycle so much so that after the apple trees put on flowers I wondered if they would make it. Well take a look at my new video post and you be the judge. You can see by the red color on top of the apples themselves that the frost did put a light touch on the parts facing up (due to frost). Anyway enjoy the spring it only comes 1 time per year.

Apple surprise

Well here it is in the middle of September and while working in the orchard this weekend I noticed that the apple trees are blooming mildly and some apples have already set. This will be very interesting if I have 2 crops of apples in 1 year. It has been very warm with no cool weather in sight, so there is a high expectation in the low chill orchard to have success x 2. Anyway follow my posts and I will update soon with the progress.

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.

Visitor to low chill orchard

When you spend a lot of time outdoors you will always see a great variety of creatures. I love to see these visitors to my backyard garden/orchard. Here is a recent example of a rare close encounter of the woodpecker type. I know it is sometimes hard to let areas of the garden go without some sort of intervention to clean and prune out things that are dead, however this should be a reminder to leave some of these areas in the garden untouched. Many times these areas are a super necessary hideaway and diner table for these little guys. Anyway hope you enjoy this little clip of my recent encounter.

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.

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.

Lemon tree is blooming

Here it is late December and you would think that most trees in the orchard would be fast asleep and ready for the winter. Not so in the backyard orchard in central Florida with some high temps at that 80F mark. High temps this time of year are generally around the low to mid 70F zone. I am just branching out to a couple of citrus trees to have some variety in the backyard orchard. I have noticed that the lemon tree is starting to show signs of going into bloom as you can see from the video. After getting posts from YT friend in southern California I guess it is not so unusual. Anyway I just wanted to share my experience on this unusual winter orchard bloom.

Very warm Christmas in the orchard

Well today was Christmas day but it almost felt like summer time. In the sunshine the temps were pushing 85 degrees and slightly humid. I would almost say unseasonably warm, but that would not be totally true because this is after all central Florida. I did a small video yesterday and made an orchard walk to show how my apple trees are staying in full leaf. I am not to sure how to address this if we don't get colder weather. I guess I will just have to be patient and hopefully it comes. Otherwise I may be left with the decision of pulling the leaves off the apple trees to force dormancy. Maybe it will not come to that and winter will set in over the next few weeks.

Feels like fall today

I spent a little time this morning walking in my backyard orchard. Let me tell you if feels like fall lately. For Central Florida many times even when the temps are cool you just don't see the color. Well I have tried to make it a point the incorporate the color in my backyard orchard by planting trees and shrubs that show your eyes that it is fall. I am here to tell you it is working and I can't tell you how much it changes how I feel about this time of year (my favorite time).

Orchard is growing in numbers

Yesterday I planted 3 more trees in my backyard orchard. I transplanted 1 tree to another location that seems to be having some issues. Back a couple of months ago aphids really attacked my trees and really punished a couple of them and 1 tree was killed. It seems as though the aphids may have spread a fire blight type of canker. Anyway I transplanted a tree that just seems to have not recovered. Maybe the new location will be better for this tree.
Well the garden is going to sleep I can tell everyday that the season is moving more to winter and the trees are starting to go dormant. Blueberries, crape myrtles, maple, elms, and muscadines in my garden are all giving up their leaves. Soon winter will be in full swing and shorter days and cool nights will be the rule. I love this time of year and look forward to it. Live everyday as though it was just for you.

First low chill of 2011

Well tonight is the first night below 45 degrees here in central Florida. I think that we will make a target of 150 hours of temps under 45 degrees to put on apples. Stay tuned!

Aphids on apples

I am growing or should I say trying to grow apple trees here in central Florida and it so far is doable. The one thing I have had constant issues with is a very small green bug called "aphid" its a simple looking little bug, however it would be a huge mistake to underestimate them. I have found that the new tinder growth is their target and they will stop at nothing to milk the sap out of it. Having said all of that I have found a method to control them and I use the word control very lightly, because that is all I can do is control them. How you ask! Sulfur orchard spray by Bonide.

The Beginning

This blog is to document my trial and error effort of growing apples and pears in Florida. I started this journey with the physical work in the backyard garden/orchard about 6 months ago with the planting of multiple apple trees. I planted 3 different varieties of trees all of which were low chill hour type trees. First is "Anna", second is "Dorsett golden", and finally "Ein shemer". The chill hour requirements on these trees are only about 150/200 hrs below 45 degrees. Hopefully this is the right combination for central Florida. Also I planted 2 varieties of pear trees "Hood" and "Florida home". The pear trees I planted in a espalier fashion and will train them on a 3 wire trellis.