On a day like today one can, momentarily at least, forget that there can be any trouble in the world. The earth is bathed in new green, the air crisp and clean, birds singing their loudest song. Everything growing, all seems right with the world.

Here, the old faithful farm dog that sits out in the cold rain, watching over her flock(us) for hours while we work in the rain managing the berries. It is nice that we have been getting an adequate amount of rain. Got everything planted now, a few more apples, a persimmon, another cherry a red currant. Now as soon as it dries up a bit we can get to work in the garden. The strawberries we planted are doing well, The raspberries that came dormant and not very alive looking are sprouting now.

Well we valiantly tried what we could to save the cherry orchard. We used smudge pots and and were spraying trees down with water past midnight. After an inspection today, it is pretty clear that we were not successful. The cherries are brown.Tonight there is to be another freeze, so they are a lost cause. Blueberries with open flowers, exposed to temps below 31 degrees will lose 90% of the fruit. I think the early berries were in full flower. The leaves of the grapes and chestnut trees were completely froze and are crisp today.

Not too happy now...likely to have a hard freeze tonight

Happy news! We will be having some cherries! Sweet cherries! Yay! The Royal Anne, especially, is covered with green ones. I can hardly wait! Of course there is still a good enough chance of a hard freeze. and that would be so unfair. There will be pie cherries too, but it actually looks like the sweet will outdo the sour. My seasonal farm hand will be arriving in a week and she will be pleased also.

Red mulch

Red? no, blue! no, I guess red! Wondering just how tomatoes and strawberries were able to benefit from red mulch I had to research it and it seems that there have indeed been scientific trials and the results are in... not only do strawberries grow better..they also are more flavorful and aromatic!!!! ("20% larger, had higher sugar to organic acid ratios and emitted higher concentrations of favorable aroma compounds ") None of the colors were as good as black for weed suppression but PSU found that blue mulch did an even better job of increasing tomato yields. "The red mulch reflects wavelengths of light that cause the plant to keep more growth above ground...So reflection from the red mulch, in effect, tugs food away from the nematodes that are trying to draw nutrients from the roots," "The results are dramatic, Plants in trials inoculated with 200,000 nematode eggs and grown with black plastic mulch produced only 8 pounds of tomatoes, compared to 17 pounds for the plants grown over red mulch. "
Scientifically the conclusion....and the explanation on just why it works
..."it is concluded that strawberry and tomato yield and fruit size were responsive to morphogenic light (primarily the FR/R photon ratio) reflected from the SRM-Red mulch to developing parts of the sun-grown plants. The plants received incoming sunlight for photosynthesis, and the upwardly reflected morphogenic light apparently acted through phytochrome in the natural growth regulatory system within the plants to direct more photosynthate to developing fruit, which resulted in larger fruit and higher yield "
some other time, melons and green mulch...you heard it here first!

Does your mouth water and pucker just thinking about rhubarb? The rhubarb is ready and we have been enjoying it just raw and crunchy, love it so!!. We planted half of a hundred strawberry plants. we have all together: 50 Earliglow, June bearing, reported to be the tastiest of berries from Nourse; 25 Seascape- day neutral everbearing,, and 25 Sparkle, June bearing, from Lowes. Now interestingly the last time we had a big bed of berries we planted them by carefully spreading out the roots and this time we planted the roots straight down. They grew the last time but apparently we planted them the wrong way. Still we're getting a few berries from the old patch but one of us kept forgetting it was there and it kept getting mowed over. I have read recently that strawberries will produce heavier with a red mulch, I couldn't find any locally but I may be able to find an inexpensive red plastic tablecloth at the party store, I think I will have to have a trial. Tomatoes, too, are supposed to like it.

We have all the raspberries planted now, this is the first time we have tried red raspberries and i really don't know why! they are so good! We have had the black raspberries for a while. I still would like to get a yellow raspberry perhaps an Anne. the following are the three varieties that we planted, i think we are missing a productive fall bearing variety.
Prelude Red Raspberry ripens early June Rich colored berries are sugary sweet and bursting with juice. Plants are hardy and vigorous, with very few thorns. They produce an excellent crop of very early June raspberries that complement the strawberry season, the Prelude also produces an excellent fall crop of large, tasty, and easily picked berries in the cooler part of September & October that mesh nicely with the pumpkin season, even well into mid November !!
Lauren Raspberry ripens mid June The berries are very large, bright red, and are the sweetest of the summer cultivars .  It also has the longest fruiting season (4 weeks) of any summer red raspberry, and it tastes pretty good even when picked a little under-ripe. It spreads much less rapidly than Prelude. 
Autumn Britten Raspberry ripens mid July The earliest fall bearing red raspberry plant. The first harvests begin in late July and continues for weeks to months. Fruits are large and bright red. A preferred plant because of its vigor and disease resistance, not to mention the sweetest flavor