Adolescent Fruit

Now that the strawberries are finished I’m looking forward to the next fruit crops, it will be a few weeks before the first blueberries are ripe enough to eat, happily we have 5 varieties so the blueberry season continues for a couple of months.

Then the blackberries will come along in July and make me want to bake pies.

The highest hope for the season are our first peaches and apples. We had a few peaches on the tree last year but the pesky squirrels ate them all when they were still green. That was the act that made us take up arms and eliminate 9 squirrels from the yard last summer. They are re-infiltrating of course, but maybe they haven’t discovered the fruit trees yet? That’s doubtful so we’ve already started taking a few shots at them as they graze on bird seed below the feeders, but either our aims went bad over the winter or our scope has gone out of calibration, perhaps a bit of both. We haven’t killed one yet this season but not for lack of trying.

The apples are particularly exciting. We planted five heirloom varieties nearly 4 years ago, they were bare root sticks and we’ve been patiently waiting. This is the first year they have bloomed and set fruit so we are filled with anticipation for their ripening, even if we only get a handful from each tree it will be a thrill.

I check from day to day on the various fruit, since the big rain earlier in the week things have really plumped up and I think we’ll see a decent crop on most things. The pubescent fuzz of the peaches and sheen on the apples fill me with expectancy, give me something to look forward to. Having fruit really lets you know you’ve been in the same place for a while and plan to stay.

We joke about planting pecan trees, but don’t believe we would ever see a nut, and besides, we don’t really have space for those giants. My brother Jonny and his wife Candy just put in fruit at their new house, he said they've been chanting "blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, fig". To that ditty I would add "bake me a pie and dance me a jig!"