Mad Tom Orchard

There is a good crop of green raspberries out there, but we need more sunshine and warm weather for them to ripen.

It will definitely be some time after the upcoming July 4’th weekend before the berries are ready.   Early most mornings we see a pair of wild turkeys and their 11 chicks inspecting the berries to see if they are ripe yet.

I will post as soon as we know when the berries will be ready – as usual at the beginning of the season, there will likely be berries ripe for a day or two and then closed for a day or two for more berries to ripen, so check the web before you come.  Look forward to seeing you.

There are lots of small green raspberries on the bushes – they will be ready shortly after the 4’th of July – I will post again as we see how fast they ripen.

Cherry crop is good this year – they will be best after the middle of July – watch the web for latest info.

Apples are now about 1 inch in diameter – we are waiting to see how well the weak acid thinning spray we put on 10 days ago is working – it looks like we will get a good crop, but not so many that the fruit will be small and we will get a good number of fruit buds form in July for next year’s crop.

The new fruit trees we planted this spring are doing well – the recent rains have helped build up the soil moisture after the very dry month of May when we had to irrigate almost all the time.  In our spare time we have been mowing, weeding raspberries and moving rocks to make mowing easier.

We will open for raspberry picking on Friday July 10 at 9:00 AM – come early in the day for best picking – there are lots of berries, but as usual they do not ripen all at once.

We hope to be open Saturday, but check the web before you come – the last two years the ripe berries were picked the first day.  Almost for sure we will be closed on Sunday and Monday for more berries to ripen by Tuesday.

Look forward to seeing folks on Friday.

COME SEE THE BLOOM – blossoms are fully out and will be for the next few days.  Green bumble bee hives are out on pallets with a sunshade.

The gate behind the barn next to the water tank is unlatched for easy access.  You are welcome to walk out in the orchard – you can smell the blossoms throughout the orchard.

We will be planting more trees today and tomorrow.

The HOT!! weather has brought all the apple varieties into bloom at almost the same time.  Usually the different varieties stretch out over  a week or more, but not this year.

We are at peak bloom now and we will begin to see petal fall by the weekend.  Our bumble bees come tomorrow, but there have been lots of native honey bees and bumble bees out working yesterday.

The “crew” has been busy planting more trees and putting down more irrigation lines.  40 more trees come tomorrow.