Harvest seasons for
peaches and thornless blackberries have now ended. Our workers are now
pruning the peach trees, and we hope to finish this job before our workers go back to college and high school next week. I'm pruning the thornless blackberry and red raspberry plants, which are very big jobs, and our workers will help with that on Saturdays during fall and winter.
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| Fall-bearing 'Reveille' red raspberries are ripening now until the first fall freeze in late Oct. or early Nov. |
Some 'Reveille' red raspberries are ripening now.
This is our main June-bearing red
raspberry variety, and it sets a smaller fall crop each year. Since
the June crop started on May 22 this year, the fall crop started a
couple weeks early, in early Aug. More red raspberries ripen each day until the first fall freeze in late Oct. or early Nov.,
so you
can often pick a few pints of raspberries if you ask about them. Pick-your-own raspberries cost
$2.08 per pint + tax.
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| These 'Crimson Crisp' trees have fruit ready to harvest in a few days. I
just planted these trees 5 years ago, so they only have a few fruit this
year. The 'GoldRush' tree in the background will not start ripening until late Oct. |
Some of our early apple varieties and European pears have started
ripening, a
couple weeks early this year. I harvest all the early apple varieties, because fruit must
be harvested promptly or they will drop when ripe. I also harvest all
the apple trees from my breeding program, as there's just one tree of
each cross, and I take notes on fruit characteristics of each cross.
I also harvest all
the pears. Pears are tricky to pick, and I harvest most pears from a ladder, which we don't allow customers to use. I've just started
harvesting a few of our earliest European pear varieties, 'Blake's Pride' and 'Luscious'. Asian pear harvest will start about Sept. 1.
 |
| These 'Blake's Pride' European pears are ripening, and I've started
harvesting a few of these plus a few 'Luscious' European pears. |
Small amounts of harvested pears and apples cost $1.20 per pound
+ tax. A 20-lb. box of pears or apples (when we have that many) costs $23.15 + tax,
which
saves $1.00 off the per-pound price. I harvest pears and
apples
into two plastic bags per box, so you can get a mixed box of one bag
of pears and one bag of apples, and still get the 20-lb.
discount.
We also have some harvested 2nds pears and 2nds apples, great for
baking or for making pear preserves or apple butter. Usually about 90% of
the fruit is still usable, but they're 69% the cost at $0.83 per pound +
tax.
Our pick-your-own apple season will start about Sept. 22 and run until about Nov. 12, as shown on the ripe dates in the sidebar at left. That's also our main apple season, when we have many harvested apples for sale.
We're still open our summer hours through Aug. 31. We
open at 7:30 a.m. Mon.-Sat., we're closed from 12 noon to 7:00 p.m., and we're open from 7 p.m. until dark each
evening. Our fall hours (see sidebar at left) will start on Sept. 1.
