The Fruit Trees

I think the hail sounded way worse with the metal roof than it really was.

I didn’t look at all the peach trees but the tree that will have the first ripe peaches (assuming we don’t get much of a frost the next few nights) seems to have had the worst damage, mainly because the peaches are bigger and I had already mostly thinned them on that tree. See at the end where the gooey stuff is coming out?

Cleaned off, it doesn’t look bad but the bad spots will start to rot. There were more peaches knocked off than there were damaged still on the tree but I’d say less than 10% were damaged.

The plum trees seemed to have been damaged a little more but it was hard to tell because I think the chickens had been pecking on the plums that fell because I found them all around the orchard.

We don’t have as many plums as we’ve had in some years past but we have plenty. I hadn’t really looked carefully at those trees before the storm so I can’t say how many plums were knocked off.

While I was out in the orchard, I was looking at all the trees and this is one of the jujube trees we planted a couple of years ago. We have one that we planted probably 6 or 7 years ago and it’s huge. We have to get on a ladder and can still can’t only reach about half the fruit but the trees we planted a couple of years ago have really taken off too.

See the black fruit? That’s some from last year that we couldn’t reach and it just stayed on the tree and dried. We probably should have removed it but we never did. Those trees have the sharpest thorns on them that are about 4″ long so I keep my distance from them. I’ll risk a few injuries to get the fruit but the dried, worthless fruit . . I guess eventually it will fall off on its own.

The persimmons and pomegranates are looking good. The worthless apricot trees are again going to do nothing. I’m not sure about the new pluot and pluerry trees — don’t see any fruit on them but we just planted them last year. Our pear trees never produce anything . . I’m about ready to make smoking wood out of the pear and apricot trees. Every year we seem to lose a pear tree. We currently have three dead ones that need to be taken out. We’re not planting any more pears.

If everything stays about the same, I’ll be happy with plums, peaches, a few figs and a lot of jujubes . . maybe a cherry or two. I’m always hopeful for cherries!