Archive for the ‘Crops - Fruits’ Category

October 2, 2009 – Applesauce Day

I’ll spare you the details of the processing, but today might be a record canning day at high hopes!  The girls spent about three hours peeling apples, and we had some bags of apples in the freezer from earlier maturing trees. We made nine canner’s worth of applesauce.  Apples take a while to cook into ...Read more.

July 20, 2009 – Fine Apple Crop (so far)

The apple trees have set a tremendous amount of fruit this year. Today I tried to make the trees resemble apple trees more so than grapevines. In the first go-round, I probably picked a couple of 5 gallon buckets of golf-ball sized and smaller apples from four trees.

But the William’s Pride apples ...Read more.

July 6, 2009 – First Pear!

We’ve been waiting for many years to get our first pear. The pears have been among the slowest of all the fruit trees to give fruit – the cherries, apples, peaches, and plums all beat the pears.

This is one of about a dozen on this tree.
one year ago…”New Blooms”

June 1, 2009 – Dead Peaches

OK, so today’s picture isn’t so upbeat, but it’s noteworthy nonetheless.  We’re on the fringe of the peach range (most people would say we are out of the range), but we’ve planted peaches nonetheless.  Last year was an incredible production year – we harvested many bushels of peaches and sold them, dried them, ate them ...Read more.

April 30, 2009 – Plum Blossoms

We continue to be in a dark, cold weather pattern.  Hard penance to pay for the 80 degree day last week. Low overcast with continual wetness starts to feel oppressive after a while.  I’m worried that the wetness, cool temps and wind will prevent the pollinators from getting out to the fruit trees.

The plums are ...Read more.

April 21, 2009 – Apple Blossoms Soon

Now that the weather is really starting to warm up, the fruit trees are on the verge of their spring splendor.

I’m very curious to see how the trees react to last year’s bumper crop and the -20 temps we had last winter.  The peaches are particularly vulnerable.  Stay Tuned!
one year ago…”State Envirothon Champs”

March 15, 2009 – Prunings

Now that the pruning has been completed, it is time to haul away all the leftovers. Rather than many trips with the two-wheel cart, I thought I’d fire up the old garden tractor and use the small hay wagon.

Of course, by the time the battery gets charged, then the drive belt slips off the ...Read more.

March 11, 2009 – More Pruning

I discovered last weekend that fruit tree pruning is a great complimentary activity to boiling maple sap.  I can prune a tree for 15-20 minutes, take a needed break by wandering over to the stove and throwing another chunk of wood in the fire, and so it goes.  Today it was frightfully cold, down to ...Read more.

March 4, 2009 – Tree Pruning

It seems like the fruit tree pruning time has snuck up on me this year. It’s just been so cold, I haven’t been able to get out.I always think I should be able to get it done in one day – but I keep planting more trees and they keep growing, so it is ...Read more.

September 22, 2008 – Apple Peeling, 2008 Style

The latest round of apple-peeling was assigned to the girls and they approached it 2008 style.

They dragged out an extension cord, a clock radio that has an IPod docking station and an IPod player to help pass the time.  I much prefer the IPod in the docking station to the earbuds, even if that means ...Read more.

September 17, 2008 – Apples, Apples Everywhere

The wet spring produced a bumper apple crop.  We’re relatively absent orchardists as far as spraying goes, so besides some dormant oil in the spring and being fanatical about picking up the deadfalls to feed the animals, our apples for the most part are not things of beauty.

But we get enough to eat, and preserve.  ...Read more.

September 7, 2008 – Plums!

This is the year for the plum tree in the front yard next to the driveway – the tree is now about 20 feet tall and up until this year, had not produced fruit – I was ready to give up on it and replace it with something else.

But this year it has come through ...Read more.

September 6, 2008 – Plum Harvest

Sometimes it’s nice to have a boy who likes to climb trees – especially when there are plums to get near the top of a tree that might not hold the weight of a full-grown adult.

You can see Martin’s head peeking out from the middle of the tree.  He’s a bit cautious as he wanted ...Read more.

August 20, 2008 – Peach Basket

This basket of peaches was just too beautiful not to share.

We can now see the end of the peach season.  This picture is also a bit of food for thought for all those naysayers that told us central Iowa was too far north to grow peaches!
one year ago…”1st Day of School for Two”