“Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Farmer Al.”

“Farmer Al, who?”

This is the reality of spring harvest 2023. It’s all about the weather, and Mother Nature has a mind of her own. 
But we’re finally getting somewhere! We are harvesting our early variety Apache apricots, Royal Tioga cherries, and Galaxy white peaches this week in limited quantities. 

The anticipation is real

There is so much to be excited about in the orchard after the amazing winter we had.

For example, cherries need at least 800 chill hours through fall and winter to produce a good crop. We had more than 1,000 chill hours through fall and winter. Our cherry trees are absolutely loaded with fruit thanks to all that chill. We thinned the Royal Tioga early variety as a result. When you thin a tree, you remove crop growth. The goal is to focus the tree’s energy on producing better fruit.

The yield is too low to include in boxes for now. But as we start to have warmer days, the fruit will sweeten up and the volume will increase. 

Will we be eating peaches in October?

With everything being so late,  does that mean our late varieties will stretch into the fall? Could we be eating peaches as late as October?

It’s a definite maybe, Farmer Al says. He reminds of us of all that we can’t possibly know.

“There is a lot of weather between now and October,” he says.