Updated Schedule for Harvest and Thinning

The original schedule, produced in the first three months of the year, is at best a guess as it pertains to harvest. So today the harvest schedule is being updated. The new start date is August 16th and not August 11th. The Base Schedule will not reflect the change. However the calendar will now be updated so stakes and wards should plan accordingly.

The thinning for July 22 and 29 are also canceled. The stakes were notified of this a few weeks ago but this is another reminder.

The Burn Pit. One final hurrah before harvest.

So the pruning and thinning is finished. The activity at the orchard from the members is only on youth night. The service missionaries are still working doing many things. Fertilizing, watering, removing large peach clusters, shoring up heavy branches so they don’t break from the weight of the fruit. The list is long and never ending. One thing that is done each year is the burning of all the wood from pruning and removing old trees, trunks, and roots. This is a controlled and permitted burn.

Thinning is done!

The thinning is over as of tonight. If you planned or sighed up to be in the orchard this Saturday, there is no reason to be here.

The orchard service missionaries and orchard manager give everyone who participated a big ‘Thank You.'“ It couldn’t be done without you.

So for the next several weeks while the peaches ripen the work at the orchard will go on. We will be fertilizing the trees, continuing to remove large branches and shoring up branches that are heaving with fruit. Also there is the daily watering for all the orchard and some general and targeted pesticide applications that must be done.
So again we thank you and look forward to seeing you when the harvest begins.

Thinning the thicket

Yes it’s time. Those beautiful buds have dropped from the branches and have produced the start of the fruit. Lots of fruit. Not much to say other than we need a lot of help to get these trees thinned so they will produce large juicy fruit and not small tough fuzzy things. The better we thin, the better the fruit. So the orchard needs help to thin. The weather is such that these have gone from small marble size to some as big as a walnut in just the last two weeks.

As always we appreciate your time you put into the orchard. It will be a blessing to so many who will have no idea of the effort made in their behalf.

The orchard service missionaries.

Thinning is about to begin

After a brief pause it’s time to get back to what is happening in our orchard. Youth nights have been extraordinary. The service missionaries have been busy doing the last of the pruning, fertilizing the trees, organizing and updating the barn, as well as the routine maintenance items like mowing grass and planting additional trees.
But now the thinning must start. So from May 22 until harvest the trees need to be thinned. Without thinning the fruit will be smaller than desired. After all the sun delivers only so much energy to the tree, and the tree divides that energy among all the fruit that is on it at any one time. When thinning we want to remove clusters and fruit that is too close to each other. To help with this the service missionaries are available during the assigned hours to help anyone with questions. We try to have several of the more knowledgeable missionaries at the drop off points to explain more when you arrive.

We appreciate all the effort everyone adds to this orchard and we hope to see you all several times over the next month or two.