Sprung

It's no Spring here. It's Sprung. Spring only lasts a week or two where our temperatures go hot and cold. We are now in the season that feels like summer but not quite as humid.

Oh, don't get me wrong the humidity is still 70+% but it's not 100% where the windows cry because they have to hold back all that moisture.


The temps have been absolutely fantastic, to me at least. I love it when I am hot in the sun and perfectly comfortable in the shade. Then again perfectly comfortable to me is over 80* normally closer to 85* :-)

The trees are producing tons of fruit this year. The squirrels have once again eliminated a good half of my peaches, but we are capturing them one by one and soon we won't have to worry about them for a while.





















The avocados are loaded. OK - well 2 of the 4 trees are. I've decided 1 tree is history. It's coming out this month as a potential transplant or I'm taking the axe to it. Either way it's scrawny booty is outta there! 1 has until next year to produce for me or it too will be gone. I'm fine with keeping 2 avocado trees. I don't think we could ever possibly eat all the fruit by ourselves from now on. Even with the blossoms being frozen back this year it still looks like it will be a good harvest!

Up in Alabama the fruit trees were blooming just as fast as they could. The plums have just started breaking dormancy, but the peaches and apples were well on their way.

  

The blossoms also got hit by a hard freeze so we will cross our fingers for just a couple fruit this year. The trees are only in the ground for their second year after all and I couldn't ask for much more than that. I will however be more careful next time and not have to transplant them. It looks like all but one tree recovered from the transplant and with the rain they've gotten this past few weeks it may have decided to come back to life. We'll find out in a few weeks.

I've also been doing some grafting around here as well. I grafted some of the Granny Smith apple branches to my apple tree here to hopefully be able to cross pollinate all on one tree. Time will tell if that worked. I also grafted some Green Gage plum scions (thanks Daphne!) onto the plum I have at home as well. It has never born fruit even though it is 7 years old. It flowers magnificently but fruit never sets. I know when I bought it I was told it was self pollinating, but apparently it was either a different variety or the information was wrong. Either way. If it doesn't set fruit next year it, too will be gone.

One of my peach trees is in serious condition. It's got moss growing on it suddenly and I don't mean Spanish moss. It's not leafing out well and not looking good overall. I may end up top grafting that this fall if these few experimental grafts take off for me.

Always something, right?

See you soon!

Barbie~