Here is an article from today's Boston Globe about a peach orchard with a local reputation we would all love to have and just how fragile success is.

[www.bostonglobe.com]

I hope this generational farm survives another year and that next winter is not so "wonderful" as so many seem to think this one was. Living in southern NH, I used the tractor twice to blow snow this winter. Hopefully, it's back to 10+ next year!

Honey Meadow Farm, LLC
Southwestern New Hampshire, Zone 5A
Elevation: 960'

Hi John,

Amen brother

Many consumers truly don't realize how much weather plays into the success of orchards and farms. Here is California, we are jsut coming out of what was supposed to be the mother of all El Nino's and it just barely surpassed the 30 year average for rain in my neck of the state. Overall, it was an average year, except that I didnt get the tractor out to plow snow a single time. That makes it three years in a row that I have not had plow snow. Rain we are getting, at least this year (finally), but the deeper cold is not taking place.

I have a close friend who has had a home in Truckee, CA (consistently one of the colder pocket areas of the western USA, historically) for the last 31 years and he said it was one of the milder winters he can recall. Even though some snow did fall, the temperatures didnt . . . it should drop below zero regularly there in winter and this year at his house, it didnt hit zero once.

Strange things are happening with the weather, is it just par for natures course . . . or something more dire.

Time will tell.

In the meantime, cheers to 10+ times snow plowing for you next winter!

Gopher Hill Apples
Zone 8 in California