Today in the orchard
It was a welcome change to have no rain for an entire day. I’d forgotten what sun looked like, although there wasn’t much of that either. It was mostly cloudy. I dug what may be the last trees of the season. Laura Sieger came over as I was finishing the digging, and we moved a lot more brush into piles to be chipped. Later we sprayed 200 gallons of “Kocide” copper fungicide throughout the orchards. We hope it will help with fireblight on the apples and pears and brown rot on the plums and peaches. The sprayer behaved pretty well for the first three hours but then stopped working. It took about an hour of ‘studio time” to get it operating again, and we completed the spray as it was getting dark.
Amelanchier, Palermo, May 5, 2025
Many more woody plants are now in bloom, including the Amelanchier (aka Juneberry, Serviceberry, Shadbush, etc.). I absolutely love the juxtaposition of the white flowers and the orange-tan foliage. It gives me shivers! The plums will be in bloom within the next few days. Some of the earliest apples are showing a little ‘pink,’ meaning bloom is not far away.
