Our apricot block on Tuesday 4/16.

If you had told me last weekend that we’d have peaches in bloom in 4 days, I wouldn’t have believed it.  The usual pattern of bloom in our orchard is pretty simple: apricots come first and last for a few days, followed by a few days of plums, followed by a few varieties of peaches.  But this year, thanks to a record high temperature on Wednesday (90!) we experienced the whole cycle in 3 days.  Apricots were in full bloom Tuesday, plums on Wednesday, and our first peaches were blooming Thursday.  Wow!

Bloom has a big impact on the orchard.  First of all, it means that it is time to be done pruning (we’re not).  It means that the trees are highly vulnerable to disease from any passing shower (we had a 30 hour wetting period on Friday causing us to scramble to provide protection).  It means that we have a very narrow window of opportunity to try to blossom thin our peaches in order to reduce the hand thinning work that will need to be done later in the season.  And it also means that anything we are going to plant needs to be in the ground very soon, which means we are spreading lime, fertlizer, and marking rows.  Throw in two flat tires, a broken drive belt on the sprayer, and a few other mechanical issues, and needless to say, it was a really busy week.

With all of this work going on, it is easy to miss the beauty around us.  I was thinning some peach blossoms by hand when it occured to me that… well, it was a really “pretty” job.  Heck, some people might even pay to stand in an orchard of blooms on a bright sunny day and run their hands across the limbs to knock off a few flowers!

The weather forecast calls for a little more seasonal weather this week, which is fine with me.

I’d like to stop — ok, maybe just slow down — and smell the flowers a little, before they are all gone.