April 23, 2013

Before

We're loving the orchard.  We spent the weekend cutting the trees down to about mid-thigh, and pruning back the limbs.  This is so that the tree sends its energy to the roots and the roots enjoy the 'vigor,' growing strong and healthy.  VIGOR is an orchard term that farmers throw around.  An orchard can have poor vigor or good vigor or too much vigor.  The first couple years, we want the tree to have less vigor and the roots to have a lot of vigor, while the years with crops, we want trees with lots and lots of vigor . . . fruiting trees with good vigor equal a good crop.  Our organic chicken compost should help increase the vigor.  We didn't use a lot this year, but when our trees begin to bloom, we will use a lot more compost.  We're fortunate to have an organic chicken compost dealer close by, in Delta County.

Its about to be a hard year for the farmers.  Rumors abound that some farmers think they've lost everything, but others are hopeful that they will still have a good crop.  The cherries and apricots are a complete loss since they are the first trees to bloom and the cold temperatures remained cold for so long that most farmers haven't found any live buds on the trees.  A year like this year, there won't be much or any thinning necessary for farmers that haven't frozen out completely.  Wind machines and other features are helpful, but a few weeks ago on April 12th and 13th, when the temperatures dipped into the mid-twenties and sustained the cold temperatures, with strong winds, there isn't much we can do to keep the warm air in the orchard.  The cold is one thing, but the cold with wind is a real bugger.

Below is a really great chart explaining the critical temperatures for fruit trees.  This is why we can grow great cherries, peaches, apricots and plums in Palisade, but you can only grow great trees in say, Fruita.  (Ironic, since Fruita has fruit in the name . . .)  Fruita is always colder in the winter and spring.  Just a few degrees colder makes all the difference between fruit on a fruit tree and just pretty leaves on a fruit tree.

http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/factsheet/pub__5191779.pdf

I'm becoming quite a weather watcher.  Tonight, there is a frost warming for our area, so hopefully the wind will stop so that the wind machines are able run and keep what is left of the fruit crop alive.  Although I don't have a fruit crop to worry about yet, or a wind machine to get up and get going in the middle of the night, having a loss of fruit crop doesn't just hurt the farmers, it hurts the workers and Mexican Nationals that are waiting to come up and work this summer.  In a country where the minimum wage is around $4/day, I'm sure that the loss of fruit will hit the migrant workers hard.

But back to the weather . . . I remember when my Grandpa was about 100 years old, he would just sit and watch the weather.  He'd tell you what the weather was about to do and that was sort of what he did, all day long.  When I was 21, in Mexico with my Grandma and Grandpa, I thought that was so strange and, well, boring.  And not so long ago, I noticed that my dad had an unusual fascination with weather watching.  He would always have the weather channel on, even if he wasn't watching.  I thought, "Huh, just like Grandpa.  How strange and boring."  And now I realize that Grandpa was a farmer.  He was a vegetable farmer for most of his life.  He was a poor one with rotten luck (it was the 60's, when lots of farmers went broke) so my dad didn't want to follow in his footsteps and stayed far, far away from farming.  But when you're a farmer, you watch the weather and make plans, depending on the weather.  So now, I guess I'll be boring you with weather reports here.  How strange and boring!

But just look at that picture . . . isn't it beautiful!  And what a nice dandelion crop we have in our alley ways (the space between rows of trees.)

After