North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Steve <sdw12986@aol.com>]

1. I haven't had a good plum year in a while and only one other year did 
I get a big crop of (Manchurian) apricots.
2. We don't often get severe thunderstorms with hail.

Well, this year we were headed for a bumper crop of the apricots and the 
fruit set on the plums was looking real good. Then yesterday we had a 
really bad storm. My home weather station gives low wind speed readings 
because the thingy is on the roof and right to the west side of the 
house are 4 big pine trees. Still, filtered through those pines, I got a 
reading of 63 MPH at 6:37 PM Tuesday. In with all that wind was the 
biggest hail I have personally seen around here. About the size of ping 
pong balls. (I know some areas often have bigger hail than that but not 
usually around here.)

Most of the plums and apricot fruits are now on the ground and, of those 
still hanging, very few are without hail damage. The apples did better 
since they were going to need heavy thinning anyway and there should be 
enough good fruit left, especially on the down wind side of the trees.
3 young plum trees, planted last year, have big chunks of bark knocked 
off the south west sides. I do believe they will survive.
The grapes... what a mess. The season is early here. The biggest of the 
plums and apricots were smaller than a standard marble and the grapes 
had not opened their flowers yet. There were lots of grape bud clusters. 
Now, there are barely any leaves, let alone clusters. They were swept 
clean.Only a few new shoots with leaves left flapping in the breeze. I 
would say that over 90% of the new growth and leaves was beaten or just 
broken off.

Not fruit, but the perennial flowers and the asparagus are beaten to 
stubs. Asparagus chunks litter the garden beyond the row of asparagus. 
Lupines just starting to bloom are 6 inch high stubs. Even tough plants 
like day lilies are laying down with the leaves on the windward side all 
shredded.

I hope I never see anything like this again!

Steve in the Adirondacks of northern NY
PS  One bright side to this. I usually aim to have my vegetable garden 
all planted by June first. I am very late this year and have not planted 
one single plant or seed yet. I'll work on that tomorrow and Friday, 
with one eye watching the sky.