Medlar fruits
This month we’re wrapping up the 2024 fruit production season. We’ve still got apples in our cooler we’ll be selling through this month (Melrose, Jonagold, Crimson Gold…), and we’ve got just a few boxes worth of medlar to pick this week. Otherwise we’ll be focused on orchard sanitation, weed management, and trellis fixes. We’re cleaning out and winterizing the apple wash line this week, and we’ll be cleaning up strawberry and rhubarb beds shortly, as well as getting a last mow in after the apple leaves drop. We’ll rake leaves out of the orchard beds and into the pathways, then run the flail mower through the pathways to try to chop up the leaf litter to help it decompose faster and thus hold less fungal pathogen inoculum over the winter.
Fruit/Bud/Tree Development
- Leaves have dropped from the Asian pears, kiwis, persimmons, and plums. We expect more grapes, pears, peaches and apples to go fully dormant soon enough.
- Not strictly tree/vine development related, but with the onset of late-fall and early winter storms like we’ve had today, we have to keep watch for trellis failures and adjustments that need to be made. This morning found a branch had fallen and loosened some wires on one of our table grape trellis rows. We’ve also got some trellis posts that need replacement in our pome blocks.
Pest & Disease
- Priority this time of year is orchard sanitation: removing dropped fruit, and chopping up fallen leaves. These activities help us reduce overwintering pest and disease in the orchards.
- Rabbits are gravitating to our newly planted apple trees, gnawing on tiny trunks and threatening to girdle some. We are once again utilizing trunk wraps to protect them from this.
What’s Ripe?
- This week we’re harvesting medlars!
Persimmons hanging on the tree (only the damaged ones are ripening…)
