Today in the orchard
It was hot again though not as hot as yesterday. We chipped brush and prunings for a second day. We now have several large piles of chips to show for it. We’ll spread them around the apple trees in the coming days where they will suppress weeds, help maintain soil moisture, and feed the trees and soil microbes for the next decade or two. Then next year we'll chip again.
The very late-blooming apple cultivars are, amazingly, still in bloom, although the earliest of the late-bloomers are beginning to fade. Bloom should be officially over within the next week.
In the evening we had a rather robust thunderstorm that dropped an inch of rain in a couple of hours. I’m not sure we needed it, but we have soil that absorbs water well and a lot of trees that love to make good use of it.
An apprentice who survived half a day of chipping atop a chip pile.