This is an in-the moment post (still written ahead of time and scheduled out).
The many sunny, warm days began the coloring of the plum tree, the ripening of the pie cherries (I actually got a handful of them before the birds realized they were ripe), and an abundance of trailing blackberries and thimbleberries. Relative abundance. They tend to hide in out of the way places. Here, for your enjoyment, are pics of the orchard and some berries and currant bushes.
First, two shots of the orchard from near the top of the mound — there are still branches that came down in January that need to be chopped up and moved out, but in general… The plum tree is fully loaded (over-loaded, actually, and should have thinned the fruit better), the apples are coloring up nicely and the pears (both the tall European pear and the slender Asian pears) are growing some lovely fruits. The cherry yielded only a few fruits, the birds got the other half that wasn’t ripe when we snagged the first few. Maybe next year (if the tree survives) we will get more!
Plum and European pear:
Apple and Asian pears:
Recognize these?
BLUEBERRIES!!!!
Native red huckleberries. Love how the foliage is so lacy. Not quite translucent enough to be ripe though.
Finally, white currants. This is the best harvest ever, and I admit to accidentally pruning out a good number of clusters by aiming the dog toys inaccurately.
There are a couple pictures of berries I harvested a little while ago, here is one that shows both variety and (for us) abundance.
The red are the thimbleberries, and the blackberries are about 3/4 inch long, the little native ones that are so tasty and rare.