Picked the wonderfully-flavored, super-juicy, red-fleshed Black Ice plums today. Black Ice is a complex hybrid. Not being sure of its pollination requirements, we have ours growing next to Purple Heart and close to two Prunus nigra trees (Canadian plum) and two Prunus ussuriensis trees. So there’s a lot of different pollen around. Ours has done really well. It’s productive, and the plums are excellent fresh off the tree. It’s one defect is that it’s very susceptible to Brown Rot. Vigilant thinning and spraying fungicides would likely help. (We sometimes do a little of both but sometimes neither.)

Also picked the Duchess apples, one of my all-time favorites. We’ll cook them into sauce, pies and crisps over the next few weeks since it is definitely not a keeper. Nor is Duchess an apple for warmer climes, but it’s wonderful here in central Maine and further north.

The Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) is now in bloom. It’s in the same genus as the common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), but it has orange flowers. I’ve been trying to get it established on the farm for years, and I finally have one plant blooming in the orchard. Hooray! Being a big fan of the color combination orange and green, you can see why I love this plant. Plus it has all the same great qualities of the syriacas.