Fruit News

We hand picked a few lugs of sweets today. Three weeks earlier than we would usually start picking. We have about 5 acres of sweets (out of 45) at the US 31 -Creswell Rd farm that have a small but economically viable crop. Jim has been watching them progress and we are getting started. We are very concerned that the birds are going to be very aggressive going after the fruit so we are going to pick them as soon as possible. The fruit that they picked today is beautiful.
One of the bright spots this year is the raspberries. The canes are loaded with fruit that will be ripening all summer long, and the new canes will develop and bear fruit late in the summer and fall. We encourage upick on raspberries, but if the upickers are not keeping up we will have some picked for the fruitstands. We have been selling Strawberries from Leelanau county and they have been very sweet this year. Asparagus has run out but it was great while it lasted.
Looking forward we will try to pick some of the scattered sweet trees that have fruit on them at the H&H farm that we have leased since 1991. Again it will be a race against the coons and birds for a scattering of cherries. It might not be worth the labor but we will try. Tarts are the worst hit and we will not harvest any tarts. The Balatons are also almost completely barren of fruit. We will try to chase the few scattered lugs that are out there but it does not look promising. Peaches and nectarines have a few fruit on the trees but without a crop to balance the tree they might not ripen into the sweet fruit that we are used to . Frequently when we have a very light crop the peaches grow too fast and get split pits which mold prematurely and are generally not usable. There are no Apricots or Pears, or Plums.
Finally we get to the Apples, and we have some good news there. At the M-88 farm there is a small but nice crop of Galas and we hope to have upick in Galas again this year. We have scattered Honeycrisp and Spys too. Most of the acreage is empty of fruit but not all. Down at Jim’s and Russell Ridge is where we have our best apple crop. On Jim’s place we have some McIntosh that survived the frost, and we have 30% of a Honeycrisp crop, but there will be plenty of Honeycrisp for our fruitstands. Russell Ridge Farm (between Jim’s and the Creswell rd farm) is the brightest spot we have this year. We have a very nice almost full crop of Honeycrisp, a nice medium size crop of Galas, and Jonagolds, and Gingergolds too. Thanks for all those prayers and weather dances!!!
Jack and I have been planting sweet corn in staggered intervals to try to stretch out the season. Mark Schiller (Jim & Rose’s son in law) led the group that planted every available spot with squash, pumpkins, cukes and pickles. We are in gear and going forward, hope to see you out here.
John