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August 28, 2008: Well, we wish that rain was our news, but it still hasn't come. We are picking Gingergold apples, and finishing up the Sunrise crop. We will finish picking Harrow Fair peaches this weekend, and have the Bartletts in the cooler already for their after-ripening time. We have fall raspberries to pick, and glads to cut each day. The first mums are now in bloom, and it's exciting to see what colours they are going to be. Almost fall!

May 23, 2005: This year is starting off cool and dry, with some beautiful sunny days through bloom that should help pollination. We are still pruning, and have started chasing weeds downs. We are picking greenhouse strawberries, greenhouse raspberries, and field rhubarb. We cut the poplars out of our windbreak last fall, so have been cutting lumber and firewood out of the logs. We are finishing up the trellis for our dwarf sweet cherries, and putting up trellis for our new planting of Ambrosia apples.

August 7, 2004: We've had the rainiest season we can remember, and wonderful moderate temperatures (although our neighbours are complaining about the lack of heat). After constant rains in the spring, we've been very dry since June, but 4" of rain in the last week has changed that. We are harvesting freestone peaches, Japanese & European plums, summer apples (Sumac & Sunrise), fall raspberries, glads and sunflowers. We may have some summer pears ready this week too. In between harvest and packing, we are trying to keep up on the mowing, install the trellis on the cherries and posts in the new apples. Also, we will be pulling the new strawberry beds early next week so we can be planting in mid-August.

May 14, 2004: We are having a warm and wet spring this year, and are quickly moving through bloom. We've been picking some greenhouse strawberries as a test crop, and just started greenhouse raspberries this week. We've been pulling tremendous stalks of rhubarb - our first crop! Peach pruning is underway on the dry days, with a few apples yet to prune. The fertilizer is on and washed in, but the weeds are taking advantage of this wet weather to get a little ahead of us.

April 10, 2003: Spring has been very slow to come this year, and we are just melting from another ice and snow storm on Monday. Our greenhouse has been up and running for almost 2 months now, and we have strawberries in flower, with the raspberries showing tight buds, and the bees are waiting for them. We are pruning apples, and chopping brush each day that is nice. A few warm days will bring the field strawberries awake under the floating covers, and bloom won't be far behind.

October 1, 2002: Well, it's been a hot and very dry summer. We had some frost damage on May 19, losing all our apricots and most of the plums. Other crops show some russeted and deformed fruit, but we are lucky to have a crop, compared to some of our neighbours. Right now we are finishing up the pears, and about 1/3 done harvesting apples. We are picking Royal Gala and Empire this week, and will pick the HW 614 pears. We have lots of fall raspberries, both in the greenhouse and the field. We are still cutting glads, and have some gorgeous mums in full bloom for sale.

May 25, 2002: We've just finished pruning peaches and apples, and are chopping brush and getting the strawberry field ready for harvest. We have been picking greenhouse raspberries for about 2 weeks now. We have 3 plantings of glads in, trying some floating covers on them this year to advance the bloom. We are trying a new flower crop, daylilies, and have started a selection of them in the field. Our IPM scout has been looking for pests for a couple of weeks, and we've just found that levels of mullein bug and Oriental fruit moth jumped this week with the warmer weather.

September 24, 2001: Harvest! had kept me from updating this page all summer. Right now we are picking Gala and Empire apples, Autumn Britten and Heritage raspberries, Bosc pears, glads and fall mums. If you know anyone who wants a job in harvest, please email us info@thefruitwagon.com

May 8, 2001: We continue to prune, but all the apples done, except one young block. We are about half done the peach pruning, and still have some pears and plums to do. But remember that we prune about 8 months of the year, so summer pruning of peach will start in about a month. We've started the glad plantings, and still looking into the other flower crops. We are running MaryBlyt every day to help fight our fireblight problem. Our IPM scout has started looking for pear psylla and European red mites. Soon it will be time to spray weeds and mow the grass again. Our main project now is putting a new roof on our kitchen before the next rain!

March 20, 2001: Our apple pruning started 2 months ago, and we have about 2/3 of the winter pruning job done. It was discouraging pruning some of the blocks infected with fireblight last summer - we removed several hundred Gala and Gingergold trees to try to stop further spread.

Our greenhouse crops, raspberries and strawberries have been growing for about a month. We grow the strawberries to harvest the runners for new transplants, so we will be removing the first set of flowers this week. The raspberries were moved in from winter storage a month ago, and are now trellissed, growing and showing the first flower clusters.

August 7, 2000: We're well into harvest and have been since mid-May. This week we are harvesting Redhaven and Harson peaches, fall field raspberries, Harrow Delight pears, Voyageur plums, Harval apricots, Harblaze nectarines, Sunrise apples and beautiful multicolours of gladioli. We moved our summer raspberries out of the greenhouse and moved the pots of Autumn Britten into the greenhouse. We made our beds for our new strawberry planting this week, and the new plug plants are growing outside in flats right now.

May 1, 2000: Blossoms are the newest thing this week, ranging from apricots at petal fall to apples just at full pink. We're starting to spray for weeds, and are pruning peaches and pears, when it doesn't rain. We've planted more raspberries in pots, and have the outside growing yards set up, but waiting for a few more plants to arrive. We've got the land ploughed for glads, and put a new roof on the old sales wagon this weekend.

March 19, 2000: The greenhouse raspberries have leafed out well, and we have tried several different types of trellis systems - wire, stakes and twine. Time will tell which is most suitable. The strawberry plants were planted in overhead troughs on March 10 & 11, and are already showing several new leaves. These plants are for growing new runner tips to root for our new field planting in August.

We have had excellent weather for pruning apples and are about 1/3 finished. With no snow on the ground, we have been raking the prunings to the row centers for chopping.

February 19, 2000: We've just moved the spring raspberry crop into the greenhouse, and are getting the trellis and trickle system set up. The canes look like they weathered the winter cold well, with many almost 6 feet tall. We also moved the growing troughs for the strawberry plants into the greenhouse and have suspended them from the overhead struts over the raspberry pots. Hopefully we'll be picking raspberries in 2 months.

We have experienced a steady, cold winter with more snow than normal. This makes it easier on fruit buds to stay dormant so we are hopeful of full crops at this time. We are ready to start apple pruning, but got snowed out on last Friday.

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