I miss my farm!

I haven’t seen it for at least a month now.

No, I’m not away, but I guess you could say that the farm is. It’s hidden away under a thick blanket of snow. There’s too much snow to walk around the farm, so I have to be content to see the orchards from the barnyard.

I’ve plowed a path through the snow to the chicken coop & the compost pile – so I can still do the chores. That’s about as far as I go.

But yesterday Meesha & I managed to trudge into the pear orchard just behind the barn, before we got tired and turned back.

Along with the snow has come the cold.

 

When the temperature gets down to -20C, we know to expect some damage to the fruit buds. At -25C we get concerned about the trees themselves. This past month we had at least 4 nights of extreme cold, as low as -23.5C on our farm. The official bud counts for our area show survival rates of 40-50% for peaches & a little less for plums. We’re quite pleased with those figures – we had been expecting more damage. Of course the winter is not over yet …  We will not know for sure until May when the blossoms open. But we remain optimistic for a crop! In theory, if even 10% of the buds are alive, we could potentially harvest a full crop – providing they were spaced evenly throughout the tree. Likely the fruit buds that are alive will be on the highest branches of the tree.

There are some signs of spring on the farm though …

 

The first of the seeds – tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, onions & herbs – have been sown, and the tomatoes are up.

They look so green & bright & fresh, and smell so good.

It’s still winter … but spring is coming!