Our UVM fruit specialist says “there is haggard/erratic bloom all over the place this year”.   We have found that the McIntosh, Cortland, and Ginger Gold were hit very hard by the 5 degree temperature on April 5’th and the crop on these varieties will probably be 10% of a normal crop.

Gala, Honeycrisp and Macoun which bloom a little later all have many more flowers.  We still need to see how many of them pollinate, but there MAY be a reasonable crop for these varieties, but not like last year.

We are grateful that the crop for our 75’th anniversary celebration was so bountiful.  The bumble bees are out working.  We have also finished planting 500 more Nova raspberries.  The existing raspberries are forming flower buds, so we hope to see fruit in July from them.

Another growing season is underway  – we will post updates as we learn more.

 

Bumble Bees in the old orchard

 Some bloom on Honeycrisp

 

Planting raspberries