My poor orchard! last year most of the fruiting was aborted by heavy a freeze shortly after pollination. This year, most of it (other than the few Cherries we have) has already been nipped in the bud by a heavy freeze just before the flowering began. Only one in ten of my hundred or so trees that are of bearing age on the grafted parts, have flowered this season. The two or three that have flowered fully are on the slightly higher part of the orchard, probably because cold air flows down and the lower part of the orchard. Though well near the top of Pumpkin Hill, our acres are mostly flat and poorly drained, whether of air, or of water.
The wooded slopes of Pumpkin Hill are full of wild Pears and this year even there on the wild trees,the bloom , normally very intense along the edges of fields… has also been about ten percent of normal. Hardly a festival.
There are one or two trees on our lower section that have bloomed well, including my favorite tree, flowering as lushly this year as any so far, I suppose its companion Pine shields it on the North When the seed Pears have grown up under the Pines, I don’t interfere too much with the pines.
