Spring 2024!

Peaches in Full Bloom

Hello, greetings and happy Spring to all! Always a great time of year, amazing to see things growing when it started to seem like dormancy was the permanent norm. The hills over here are green and the flowers, wild & domestic, are blooming profusely. We had a good Winter with a few exceptions, but good to take a break from all the farming chores. Weather wise there wasn’t much snow and we had some very cold temperatures, the coldest we’ve had since we’ve been here in 35+- years. For many locales in Eastern Washington minus ten isn’t that unusual, but here in the Lake Chelan valley it is. That’s one reason we can grow many of the things we grow, like many of the soft fruits. ( I’m mostly referring to the areas away from the main agricultural zones in the lower elevations, close to the big rivers). Anyway, it was much to our surprise when we discovered that the cold pretty much wiped out our peach/nectarine crop and many of the apricots and still yet to be seen what else. Some plums, apples, pie cherries and Asian pears look to have decent blooms on them, so now to wait and see how pollination goes.

I mentioned to some folks at the market that last year that we weren’t going to be bringing the amount of tomatoes and green beans and other various garden crops we had been, we are scaling back some. I still plan on continuing with the tree fruit and what garden produce from our reduced production. Without the peaches this year, I’m guessing my presence at the market in late July and August will be less than what has been normal. Our farm has always surprised us with what we can come up with to bring over after smaller setbacks over the years, the diversity has served us well, so we’ll see..

Most of the trees look like they weathered the cold well, with the exceptions of the blooms. Some trees don’t look great, so we wait and see how they do. Actually, the peach & nectarine trees will probably do very well without the burden of a crop and grow abundantly, so maybe next year.. The next few weeks will be critical for pollination, hopefully we’ll get some warm weather and let the bees get out to do their work, this is always the way it is!

The Burbank Plum Bloom

I hope to see you all in early July. Thanks again for supporting us all these years!