Wednesday was another mild day with some morning sunshine before it clouded over around lunchtime resulting in a couple of afternoon showers.
Our potted apricot tree which stands outside our home greenhouse is full of promise of things to come.
It’s covered in flower buds just waiting to break open in a spell of nice weather. Of course there’s a long way to go from flowers to fruit with all sorts of pitfalls before we get our first ripe apricots. Last year, along with the peach and nectarine, the tree suffered badly from peach leaf curl and needed all its infected leaves removing. This meant in the case of the peach and nectarine, all their leaves. They did grow back a healthy set of fresh leaves through the summer. In an attempt to prevent the peach leaf curl this year our peach, nectarine and apricot trees were sprayed with a Bordeaux mixture today. It’s left a bit of a blue tinge on the bark of the tree which is just about visible in the photo.
Once the flowers open pollination will be the next hurdle as there aren’t many pollinating insects about this early in the year. I guess Sue will be out with her paint brush trying to make up for that lack of insects.
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I'm very envious of your apricot as I've killed two of them myself. I've been noticing a few buds on things today.
ReplyDeleteSo far our tree has survived but we await our first apricot. Frost here this morning which wont have done the blossom any good.
DeleteWow an apricot tree...I must say I have been thinking about getting one.
ReplyDeleteI think it flowers a little bit early for us to get fruit in the UK. Might just be lucky though!
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