By now, if you have trees of your own, your apples should be the size of your thumb nail.  I'm always hoping that the fruit set will be bigger than last year.  This year, it seems to be about the same as last year.  The weather plays such a huge role in things.  Between the cold winter and the wet spring, Mother Nature always seems to have an effect on things.  Thats ok.  When I do get a bigger than normal fruit set, I'll be ready.  June is also the time that the trees thin themselves out.  It's called the June drop.  Go out and look on the ground around your trees and you will probably find small apples on the ground.  This is Mother Natures way of making sure that the tree has enough apples, but not so many that the trees break.  If the tree still has too many, I'll go out and help to thin them also.   For any of you that remember, I put up an Osprey pole last spring.  This year, 2 younger birds have staked out the nest as there new home.  Having a raptor around as kind of an organic critter control is a good thing.  Even if they usually eat only fish, the critters don"t know that !!!

Its a new year in the orchard and things are moving right along.  Bloom is about 75% done and fruit set is right around the corner. Winter was tougher this year than it has been in the past and we lost about 25 trees.  All of those lost were trees that had been planted last spring and they are usually the most vulnerable to a hard winter.  The older trees are doing fine and now its up to the bees and the weather to complete the process.  Seems like every year brings on new challenges for the orchard, so we never know quite what to expect.  As always, I'm looking forward to whatever is coming and I'll be sure to keep you posted