Community Corner
Soule: A Bad Year for Apples and Peaches
This year, many New Hampshire fruit trees lost their spring blossoms to a late spring frost, meaning fewer apples to pick this fall.
New Hampshire has finally gotten a garden-ending killing frost. Until recently, backyard gardens were bursting with squash, cukes, tomatoes (green and red), and more. Garden produce exploded from the ground with the extraordinary amounts of rain we had this summer. But something was missing: local apples and peaches.
In May, my backyard apple trees were covered with blossoms and buzzing with bees. Then, disaster struck. On May 17 and 18, New Hampshire had a late spring frost that seemed harmless to most of us. Just a bit of cold, and we all got on with our lives. But that cold (down to 27 degrees) lasted two days. Fruit blossoms are vulnerable to frost once the buds begin to swell.
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To save the tender blossoms, farmers stayed up all night running wind machines, pulling down warm air to break up the pooling of cold air among the trees. At Apple Hill Farm in Concord, such valiant efforts didn't work because there was no warm air to bring down.
Mother Nature won that battle, and many local orchards lost all or most of their apple and peach crops. It was sad for those do-it-yourselfers who love to roam through an orchard picking apples and peaches, but it was a disaster for the farmers whose livelihoods and farms depend on that once-a-year crop.
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Carole Soule is co-owner of Miles Smith Farm, where she raises and sells pork, raw milk, eggs, and beef. She can be reached at carole@soulecoaching.com.
