Looking for More Student Workers

   We've had a busy start to the 2019 growing season, after an extended winter.  There's a huge amount of work every year in early spring, but even more this year, since we couldn't do as much pruning over the winter due to continued cold.
   Thankfully, winter temperatures did not go below 4 F, so all our fruit plants have plentiful live fruit buds this spring.  Also thankfully, the prolonged colder temperatures delayed fruit bud development on our peach trees.  Peach trees are now in the pink bud stage, when the enveloping petals still protect the pistil (the female flower part that produces the fruit) from frost damage.  We had a 31 F frost yesterday morning, March 22, which did not hurt peach flowers at all.

Peach flower buds are now in the pink stage, still protected from frosts. We hope to have a good peach crop this summer.

   So we're hopeful that we'll have a great peach crop this summer.  Peach trees should reach full bloom in about a week, the last few days of March.  Then we have about 10 days until the average last frost date in this area.  Light frosts, down to 29 F, during peach bloom are actually beneficial, as they help to thin excess fruit.
   Each mature peach tree has 8000 to 10,000 flowers.  Peach trees produce about 10 times more flowers than needed for a good peach crop, to ensure against flowers being killed by frosts.  If we have no frosts during peach bloom, we have to remove about 90% of the young fruit, so each tree only matures 800 to 1000 fruit.  If we did not do this, none of the fruit would reach good size, the heavy crops would cause tree limbs to break and fruit would not mature, and brown rot would spread rapidly between fruit that are touching.
   So we'll likely have to do a great deal of thinning of the young excess peach fruit this year.  First we use pneumatic limb shakers to jar excess fruit from the limbs, about 5 to 6 weeks after full bloom.  Then we go over each tree by hand, twisting off excess fruit so the remaining fruit are at least 6" apart.  With about 140 mature peach trees and another 50 young bearing peach trees to go over, this takes a huge amount of labor.

In this photo from May 2013, Brandon Ledford, one of our student workers and a Brenda's Berries & Orchards Scholarship recipient, used pneumatic limb shakers to jar excess fruit from peach limbs.

   So we are now looking for more student workers.  We hire high school or college students who can work every Saturday and school holidays during the school year, whenever the weather is conducive, and can work Mon. to Sat. mornings, 6:30 or 7 a.m. to 12 noon, during the summer.  Workers must live within 20 miles of Brenda's Berries & Orchards, have their own transportation here or be able to carpool with other workers, and come to work every day unless sick or they notify us in advance.  Workers must be dependable, prompt, honest, and have a good work ethic.
   We could use more workers starting next Sat. March 30, to help with blackberry pruning.  When we finally finish pruning our 2000 blackberry plants, workers will help prune apple, pear and peach trees.  Then in early May we'll start thinning peaches, which takes the whole month of May.  In early June workers will do follow-up hand thinning of apples and pears, then summer pruning of new canes of blackberries.  During July and Aug., our workers harvest all ripe peaches each morning, and must do this quickly yet gently, to avoid bruising the tree-ripened peaches.
   Workers must enjoy working outside, sometimes during hot, cold or very windy weather.  They must follow instructions well and work quickly and efficiently.  Official pay (including workers' half of their Social Security & Medicare taxes which we must pay each month) is $8.07 per hour, with take-home pay of $7.50 per hour.  Interested potential workers should call 620-597-2450 and leave a message with your name and phone number on the answering machine.  Have phone numbers of references available when I call you back.
   A Brenda's Berries & Orchards Scholarship is potentially available for qualified student workers who want to later attend Kansas State University, Missouri State University or University of Arkansas and study food crop production, food crop breeding, microbiology or engineering.  Two of our student workers have received this scholarship so far, and we'd especially like to hire more student workers who are interested in these fields.
   We should have harvested asparagus for sale starting in early April.  Expected availability dates for asparagus, all our fruits and pecans are listed in the sidebar at left.  We're hoping we have good crops of all our fruits and pecans this year, and we'll keep you posted.