The Orchard Takes a Hit

You wouldn't know it to look at the garden, but the orchard is really having a hard spring.  

We had a very late, very cold, and prolonged, frost in April.  The orchard trees had all started to blossom, and some were even starting to set fruit.  The frost took care of that.  I lost all the fruit on my apples, pear, cherries, peaches and plums.  My persimmon tree just plain old looks dead; it had just started to leaf out.

Golden Noble apple tree with frost damage

And then, to add insult to injury, one of my baby apple trees developed apple scab and one of the pears is continuing its ongoing fight with fire blight.  Every year I cut out more and more infected areas.  The tree is shrinking instead of growing.

The rest of the garden looks great, thank goodness.  My perennials are blooming -- a bit late -- but blooming as if to say, "full steam ahead!"  

I was going to plant my veggie starts this weekend (Mothers Day is my marker) but there is a late spring storm coming through over the next few days.  We will get rain (good), maybe some snow (what??!!) and frost (NOOOOOOOO).  I'm hoping the frost periods are short, not lasting more than an hour or so in the early mornings.  By Wednesday, it should be safe to plant the veggies outside.