Veggies, Fruits and Nuts

This wet weather has been harsh on gardens. After your tomato plants rot out three times in a row it’s time to give up. Not everything in the garden is doing poorly, but it looks pretty bad. 

Commercial orchards are not doing well. In general most have had significant loses. Due to micro climates some have done well. On the flip side others are almost totally devastated. 

The wild fruits are a mixed bag. Locally blueberries seem to be doing fine. Raspberries are not doing well. My pin cherries don’t ripen. They either fall off the trees while still green or go right from green to brown. I haven’t eaten any of them. There’s hope yet for the blackberries. 

The hazelnuts are actually looking pretty good. Time will tell how they turn out in the end. I’m told that beechnuts are doing poorly. They are an important food for wild animals. 

My sunchokes look good. They are my emergency backup survival food. Sunchokes seems to thrive in harsh conditions and nothing seems to kill them. They are more invasive weed than cultivated plant. The plan is to dehydrate as many of them as possible this year. They are good in soups and stews. 

My plan is to stock up on things that keep at the end of the growing season -no matter the price. My guess is that prices will only get higher as the months go on. 

-Sixbears

So Much for Fruit

Here in northern New England we had some seriously below zero weather back in February. Then we had a hard frost in May. That took its toll on fruit trees. Some orchards show a 99% lose. That’s unsustainable. 

It varies quite a bit due to micro climates. In fact, the damage can vary from severe to minor in the same orchard. It’s difficult to get hard numbers but I think we are somewhere in the 50% loss area. That’s pretty harsh on business but also impacts our food security. 

What we’ll have to watch is whether or not it’s a rate event or the new normal. Farmers are resilient but there are limits. Absorbing one bad year is doable. Doing that year after year isn’t. 

Of course it’s not just the fruit trees that affected. Looking out at the forest it’s apparent that some areas have a lot of dead leaves. That’s not normal for the summer. I’ve no memory ever seeing it like that before. While humans are concerned about orchards, wild animals need the rest of the forest. There are plenty of wild fruit trees that wildlife depends on. 

I’m curious to see what the wild nut harvest will look like in the fall. 

Of course, we are big nation and get our fruit from all over. If the rest of the country does well it might not be too big a deal at the checkout counter. It is certainly affecting my local apple orchards and I’m going to miss the local products. 

One more thing to keep an eye on.

-Sisbears