Thornless Blackberry Season has Ended

   Our thornless blackberry season has now ended a week early, due to the continued high heat and drought.  Over the past 7 weeks, our farm has received a total of 0.7 inches of rain, which was only 10% of the amount needed.  Over the past 3.5 weeks, we've gotten only 0.08 inches of rain, on top of high temperatures over 100 F almost every day.  We irrigated every day, but could not supply all the water that the plants needed with such high heat.

   Rain is now likely from tomorrow night until Sun. July 31, and we're praying that we'll get a good amount, but it will be too late for the few remaining blackberries.  As my husband Bill said the other day, "Whatever amount of rain we get, we'll praise God for it."  We thank Him now in advance, that our fruit trees and pecan trees will finally get the rain they need.

Blackberry season has now ended, but we do have Bill's homemade blackberry jam and other jams for sale.

   The high heat and drought decimated our early-ripening peach varieties, and they likely won't recover even after we get rain.  We hope to still have a few pounds of our later-ripening peaches for sale from about Aug. 8 to Aug. 24, but I can no longer predict how much we'll have, and when each peach variety will ripen, since peach fruit growth and ripening times were so greatly delayed by the long spell of high heat and drought.

   So I have now taken Peaches off the sidebar at left under Crop Sales Seasons.  If we have a few pounds of our later-ripening peaches for sale in Aug., I'll mention it in the blog posts I write between Aug. 8 and Aug. 24.

   Both Bill and I feel that God is calling us to focus more of our energies on the main reason that we have this farm, which is to develop improved, disease-resistant varieties of pecans and apples.  So we are scaling back on unprofitable fruit crops such as peaches, and devoting more time to evaluating and propagating the promising selections in Bill's pecan breeding program and my apple breeding program.

   We do still have some harvested, cracked pecans for sale, now until late Aug.  These are big, beautiful pecans with thin shells and great taste.  Some originated from my husband Bill's pecan breeding program on our farm, so only exist here.  We sell cracked pecans in 4-pound bags, which are over 75% pecan kernels and under 25% shell fragments.  Each bag has the equivalent of 6 pounds of in-shell pecans, and when you pick out the pecan kernels, you get 3 pounds or more of nutmeats.  Each bag costs $18.52 + sales tax.

We still have harvested, cracked pecans from our great 2021 crop for sale, now until late Aug.

   These pecans keep well in the freezer for at least 6 years.  Once we sell out of these pecans from our 2021 crop, we will not have any more for sale until harvest of the 2022 pecan crop begins in mid-Nov.  Our 2022 pecan crop looks good, but we won't harvest as many tons as in 2021, and the kernels will not be as large due to the long spell of high heat and drought. 

    If you do want to come buy pecans and/or peaches in Aug., please phone 620-597-2450 a day ahead and leave a message on our answering machine with your name, day and time you plan to come (during our Summer Open Hours), and what you want to buy.  During the first week of Aug., one of our 2 workers who's been harvesting our small peach crop will be gone on a mission trip, so I'll be harvesting peaches.  Our newest peach orchard is far from our sales building, so I usually can't hear vehicles come in the driveway or the bell ring out there.  Then in mid-Aug. college starts, so I'll still be harvesting peaches.  So I appreciate a call a day ahead so I can expect you.  Thanks.