One of our favorite crabapples. It’s named Kaleidoscope, bred by a crabapple breeder in Ohio and named by Cammy. It’s an outstanding tree!

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today was not nearly as hot as it’s been the past few days. The risk of fireblight, however, remains high. With over 300 cultivars we have a wide range of bloom times - some trees have flowered and dropped their petals days ago while flowers on other trees are just beginning to open. The yeast product (Blossom Protect) that we spray only works on open flowers. Every day flowers are opening that are not protected by yesterday’s spray. So we have sprayed 3 times in 3 days, and we may be spraying again before long. A lot of the flowers on the apples have now dropped—called “petal fall”. The bloom is so beautiful. It’s sad to see it going by.

Our plum trees are about to be attacked by an unpleasant weevil-type bug called plum curculio. Protection from PC takes another spray of a clay product called Surround.