I know! What in the world
is a blackberry winter? Our nearest neighbor, June, explained that the reason she doesn't put in her whole garden before May 15th is because of the blackberry winter. I must have given her a dumb look because she went on to say, "You know, like the red bud winter and the dogwood winter?" Huh????
Well, it turns out that here on the plateau (and probably other places as well) spring brings a couple of cold snaps, sometimes with a light frost and those cold snaps coincide with the blooming of the red buds (late March), the blooming of the dogwood trees (mid-April) and the blooming of the blackberry bushes (mid-May). By darned if she wasn't right! We've had cold snaps after 70-80 degree days that brought the temps back down to the 40's and even lower just after each bloom. And now, here it is May14th and the weather man is predicting low temps in the high 30's tomorrow. Are you kidding me? It's been in the 70's and 80's for 2 weeks now and he says after this rain front goes through tonight our temps are going to drop. The three of us are still fighting off the effects of Sunday's sunburn and now we will need jackets and jeans again?
Wonder what that's going to do to my garden? The plants will either survive or they won't, there's not much I can do except cover them up as best I can and see how low the temperature drops tonight.
Oooooooooo, can you see the row of white blooming bushes that runs all along our property line?
Yup, those are all blackberry bushes. This one above our bluffs has white daisies blooming next to it, too.
I'm not kidding when I say that blackberry bushes are everywhere on our land! But here is the real reason I'm concerned about the low temperature. Our orchard. I'm not certain how low a temperature the new fruit can survive.
These are baby apples and I sure would hate to lose them our first year.
And look how much the grape vine has leafed out in just 2 weeks! It's a good thing I painted the posts when I did or I'd never get a paint brush to cover all of the posts.
There are even baby grape clusters starting to form.....man, I sure hope these little guys survive.
I'm not too worried about the granddaddy pear tree as it has survived many winters here. This tree was loaded with a ridiculous amount of pears last fall and I can hardly wait to see what our harvest is like this year.
When I checked it this morning I saw new pink baby pears starting to form already. I'm so excited about all this fruit on our trees. I've got visions of canning applesauce and maybe even trying our hand at apple cider once we have enough of a harvest in a year or two. And of course, the pears can be canned so we can enjoy them all winter long. I've started buying canning jars each trip I make to the store so I will have what I need when the time comes to begin canning our surplus fruits and veggies.
Here is the right side of the orchard which has the row of different peach trees on the right and the pears and one cherry on the left. Most of the trees seem to have adapted to our soil but I am afraid the plum, one peach and maybe the crabapple tree may not make it so I'll have to keep an eye on them to see how they do this summer. If they don't make it we'll just replace them and try again.
The left side of the orchard has all the apple trees and the sour cherry and plum. The sour cherry has tons of little cherries on it already. It's a good thing I've been collecting recipes for different ways to use all the fruit we hope to begin harvesting over the next few years because you can only eat so much fresh fruit fast enough that it doesn't spoil. And then it's time to start canning jams, jellies, compotes and fruit butters. Yum, I can hardly wait!
All in all we have 20 trees in our newly established orchard. Hopefully they will bear us fruit that will be the star of our meals for many years to come.
The Tree Whisperer,
Debbie
