Thinning Trees:

One trick we use to get our fruit so large and sweet is removing fruit from the tree in April and May. Hand thinning is a very expensive process. We remove all the small and damaged fruit, leaving only an amount the tree can support. When properly done, this will allow the tree to produce large, sweet, and flavorful fruit.

In the picture to the left you can see the slow tedious process of thinning out our certified organic nectarines. Bella Viva employees know these trees well and actually count the amount of fruit on each tree. Depending on the tree's size and variety, our employees leave 200 or 2000 pieces of fruit on the tree.

There are a couple things to consider when thinning trees in your yard or orchard. The sooner the fruit ripens, the more fruit you should remove. The later varieties will have more time to grow so more fruit can be left. If you decide to thin a tree, a rule of thumb for peaches and nectarines is 12 inches apart for early ripening fruit and 6 inches apart for mid to late ripening. For apricots and plums, 2-6 inches is the spacing to shoot for. When the fruit matures, you will have a better idea of what to do next year.

Frost and Hail:

You may remember in our last newsletter that we mentioned the threat of frost. Sure enough, there was some frost out there on one calm morning. By the time I got to work at 8 am, there was only a little bit of frost in the shade and I could watch it melt right off the trees as if it was never there. Luckily it was a light frost and there wasn't too much damage.

In the bottom right picture you can see a peach that looks like it has some wet spots on it but the skin is dry. The dark spots are where the peach has frostbite. Fruit like this will end up falling off the tree. In a severe frost, all the fruit can fall off the tree.

We are pretty confident that the threat of frost is over however, there is still a chance that we can still be hit by hail. As the weather changes from spring to summer it fluctuates a lot and can be very unpredictable until May. There is no practical way to protect an orchard from hail. Hail damages the fruit is contacts, creating marks. Sometimes it will rip the fruit right off the trees. Late season hail can be very isolated. There have been times when it would hail on our side of the road and not the other.

Oranges to Cherries:

We are just finishing up drying the last bit of our certified organic oranges. To celebrate this we are offering 2.5 lbs of oranges at 1/2 off!
Regularly $25.00. NOW only $12.50

We are now preparing for cherry season, which is right around the corner! By June we will be offering our first certified organic cherries. So be on the look out!