Carpenter orchard trees with leaves of majestic green!

"I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree

A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray,

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair

Upon whose blossom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems were made by fools like me
But only God can make a tree."
--By Joyce Kilmer

Almond orchard with nuts on trees.. Hoping for a reasonable harvest..

The bright silence of an young orchard..

Whitmore 2nd leaf almond orchard..

Training candycot (fancy apricot) trees on V-shaped trellises

The more sunlight a tree can intercept, the more photosynthesis will happen, the more tree grows, the more it gives.. So, a trellis structure maximizes sunlight interception by the tree leading to better tree health and higher yields. In the absence of trellising, the tree canopy spreads like an umbrella where outer parts of it get a lot of sun but the interior part struggles.

Roto-tiller at work at Carpenter ranch

We have hired a rototiller to come in to loosen up and smooth the soil. We have a lot of "sink holes" where the soil has fallen in to cavities formed way back when the ground was ripped. The rototiller does a nice job of loosening and smoothing. In the worst areas the holes are too deep to fill in and we will follow him with our orchard "float" and roller. We will end up roto-tilling probably more than half of the middles.

When wind and roof fight, wind always wins!

We had a terrific wind all day and in the afternoon there was a period of extreme gusts. We lost very few trees, but the wind badly damaged the roof of the house. It lifted the top layer of the roof and peeled back a section. A good portion of the Styrofoam insulation blew out. A portion of the sheet metal tore. I am pretty sure we will have to replace the whole roof.

Carpenter Trees

With their thick branches, far and widely spread..