Vets Day!

This is always a good holiday. October is drags on and on. This day from a purely holiday perspective is wonderful. It is just one day. In this year's case it was not hooked up to a weekend. The weather is very nice in the afternoon. Today we are in the 65 degree range. I had a chance to get out and plow through my front yard pluot tree. It is always good to prune a plum (or a pluot) when the leaves are still on. this year I pruned it for strength and lowered its height. We had a huge crop of golden/green pluots this year. The last of them were eaten by the girls a couple of weeks ago. The tree needed to be opened up in the center. The lengthy branches had to be wheedled down. The overall effect should be a good crop next year but not one that will have me pitching them at everyone that I know. The pluot is a Flavor Queen. It has wonderful fruit. This is the first year I had enough to wait until the fruit got completely ripe. Boy they did get ripe. Sweet Sweet Sweet.

Sue is not happy with the amount of white peaches that I had last year. Again way too many.. can you imagine that? So I have been hacking it down today as well. This summer we should have just enough. The Sugar Lady peaches are ripe around the middle of July. My peach hedge with the redhaven (the most often planted peach), the
Babcock, (another white peach) and the standard Elberta are ready for some production this year.

Still left to manhandle is the apricot tree in the back. It give a miserable crop last year (only 8 quarts) but this year the foliage looks really good and it will produce a ground breaking crop if I don't lower its top branches to a more reasonable height. It is the oldest tree on the property.. almost 28 years old.

The pomegranates are pumping out ripe fruit this fall.. and the lemons are almost ready for harvest.. Yes there will be lemon delights at the Thanksgiving table.

Check the flickr steam for the latest lemon photo.

Pat