Fruit Trees in Blossom

Morning Everyone,

After the glorious weather of the Easter weekend break, the first bank holiday weekend of May has felt like a weekend in January! Apparently the May Bank Holiday this year was the coldest on record – and last year it was the warmest on record!

We have such a huge amount of blossom on our fruit trees which are in our Organic Orchard and around our Organic Farm. We have our fingers crossed that all this blossom is not lost to the cold temperatures. It has been so cold that we have not only had the freezing temperatures, but the snow and hail to go with it!

Bob and I would have really liked warmer weather as we are soooo ready (and so are our plants) to transplant outside. Bob started by planting the potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes, sowing seeds of carrots and leeks, the Aztec broccoli, Globe Artichokes and Red and Green Cabbages have been transplanted. They are all under some form of covering……either fleece or mini mesh tunnels.

The covering will remain over the plants until the cold and frosts have definitely finished – “Ne’er cast a clout till May be out” (May here, pertains more to blossom than the month, however, coincidentally, the blossom is out during the month of May). We hope it is sooner than the end of May. The covers do help to raise the temperature a degree or two and that is all we need to prevent frost damage.

Another good result of the coverage….those pesky rabbits are prevented from having lunch and those birds prevented from pecking away and destroying plants.

We are going to place electric fencing around certain areas of planting outside. This, hopefully, will also prevent rabbits from helping themselves to greens. We are not a drive thru’!

A word of this decade must be ‘resilience’. Plants are resilient. But, we are going to provide as much help as possible to enable them to grow and produce tasty organic vegetables. Whether that is reducing the risk of plant damage from our local neighbours with a beak or four feet, or, increasing the chance of good growth by adding natural minerals of volcanic rock, limestone or seaweed.

This weekend Bob and our cart filled with Organic Veg is joining a few stall holders from Jesmond Food Market and some new friends from in and around Jesmond. It is a May Spring Fete, so fingers crossed for fine weather (fine and full sun on the forecast).

Till next week,

Ann