February Freeze

Junior the Rooster that believes he is a duck on the warm compost pile

 February on Whidbey Island is usually a mix of cloudy days, some rain and usually two weeks of spring like weather.  This year we have had the clouds and rain, but instead of the spring like weather we have had snow, ice and frigged weather.  Last February we had 1.5 inches of rain at our farm, so far this year we are almost twice that.  Two days ago we had four inches of snow followed by sunny weather that melted most of it and allowed me to put some finishing touches on the newly expanded buck house, with that afternoon getting another three inches of snow.  The snow was so bad the buses refused to go north of Freeland so I had to take the 4x4 truck into town to pick up Pam on her way home from work.  I don't mind driving in the snow with the exception of crazy drivers - tailgating is popular in the snow and ice with many drivers along with passing in no passing zones.  This morning we got down to 16 degrees when I went out to change water and feed the goats.  Oh my!

Our 9 year old peach tree after pruning

Last week the buds on the peach tree were getting huge so I pruned it.  My plan was to wait until Saturday March 12th because I am doing a pruning class/workshop for South Whidbey Tilth at our farm that morning, but with the large buds I did it anyway.  Now with this freeze I'm sure everything will slow down - probably could have waited.  Every year for the past few I teach pruning of fruit trees here at our farm in late February to early March in conjunction with a series of organic food growing classes SW Tilth puts on.  With our 22 fruit trees, most of which are semi-dwarf to full dwarf, and mature, this is a good place to show how to prune.  I am a certified arborist and learned to prune fruit trees from a retired WSU professor 12 years ago - hands on at a farm with over 200 fruit trees.  If you talk to 20 fruit tree experts, you will get 22 different ways to prune.  The system I was taught works very well and is very easy and fast.

From 10 am to noon, I will take the 20 or so folks around our orchard and demonstrate my technique, also talking about organic pest and disease control, along with how to fertilize.  Then after lunch I will prune all of my trees in about two hours, with anyone that wants hands-on experience welcome to stay.

This Saturday I am going to demonstrate fruit tree pruning to a group call Gleeful Gleaners, a group of people on the south part of Whidbey that pick fruit from trees that would normally just fall to the ground and take that fruit to the local food banks.  From one of the leaders of this group: "Despite winging it, our start-up year rustled up 53 volunteers, 23 tree fruit donors (some with numerous trees) and yielded 2107 pounds of fruit channeled to people in need of it."  I believe 90% of the fruit grown by homeowners falls and rots on the ground while these same people go to the store and buy fruit grown 1000s of miles away.  We use 100% of the fruit we grow, freezing and drying what we don't eat fresh.

Our Garlic coming up through the February snow