If I use river rafting as a metaphor for how our life is going, I would say we're entering the white water. We'll be starting cherry harvest in 3 weeks. Once cherry harvest starts, our fruit harvest will be ongoing until November with a few short breaks in-between.
I'm anticipating heavy waters at times since this will be the biggest cherry, blueberry and apple harvest we've ever had. The acreage expansion we made by adding 52 acres in Union Valley this year has kept us busy. Luckily we had a mild spring which meant we had an extended time in calm waters. How do you like my metaphor so far?
While the waters were still calm, we worked in a visit to Florida to see the kids over Memorial weekend and help Shyla celebrate her 27th birthday.
As soon as we returned, we had two graduations to attend. Cousin Leah's at Chelan High School (Doesn't she just look sassy?) and....
Gonzalo's at Chelan Preparatory High School. Gonzalo has been working for us and attending night school daily for the past two years. He gave a fabulous speech entirely in English thanking everyone, including us. What an achievement Gonzalo!
So back to white water farming, here are the grafted Kanzi's. They've caused us a little anxiety. Turns out instead of sending out leafy shoots like the Honeycrisp, they bust out in blooms. WIERD! After a week of the blooms withering on the sticks, they're finally leafing out like a healthy grafts.
This is mildew in the Honeycrisps. We've got a little in each of our apple blocks as a result of the moist spring we've had this year and last. All of our spray recommendations include products to control the mildew.
We've had good cherry set everywhere but the Rainier block.
There is speculation with the state's large cherry crop this summer that cherries 11 row and smaller will be sold at a terrific discount. With our heavy set in the Sweethearts, we decided we'd thin them to get bigger size. This picture of Brent Huck comes from the Good Fruit Grower in an article about cherry thinning. Here Brent is explaining how workers use the "claw" to thin fruit. We bought several of these along with a few long bladed clippers. It felt counter intuitive to cut off the fruit, but we do it in apples so why not cherries! According to fieldstaff, only 5% of cherry growers thin their cherries. We are officially part of that 5% now. I'll let you know how that works out.
Here is a view down a Rainier row. We need more light!
Check it out now after a day of summer pruning! Hey, and it turns out we have more cherries than we thought now that we can see them!
We grabbed a few guys from the apple thinning crew to stub cut everything that's one year old wood; cleaning for light penetration. We'll lay the reflective ground material in the new week.
This is irrigation water at our home. Finally after 25 years of trying to get irrigation water at home, it's mission accomplished! This photo was during the flow test which determined we have 170 gallons a minute. When Bill has a spare minute, he's on Lola digging the ditch for the pipeline. More later!
