It appears we are going to have another bumper crop of Apples, Pears, Plums and Cherries this year, on all the
fruit trees in our valley! An experiment we did on one of the
apple trees back in 2009, by thinning the fruit as soon as it forms after the blossoms are done, resulted in a fairly significant harvest in 2010, an off-year for all the trees around it. This Spring, since we did very little winter pruning of branches, and since we have a bumper crop of blossoms, we'd like to proposed that our Fruit Tree adopters visit their trees after the blossoms are done, which should be the first or second weekend in June, and remove about half of the small fruits, leaving no more than 3 small fruits per cluster on apple branches, or what looks like half the fruit on any other species. This allows you to select the healthiest looking fruit for the tree to finish, and remove the fruits that appear stunted or weak. Of course, you'll also be removing some healthy looking fruit, but the results will be worth it. You should experience a crop of larger and juicier fruit this autumn, and you should see another crop next year, when trees whose fruit has not been thinned will have almost no fruit at all. Our
bamboo plants are doing good as well.