A Year in the life of Allambie Orchard

“ Life is just a bowl of Cherries”

January. By January nearly all cherries are picked and this is the perfect time for a short holiday. The trees continue their growth and still require irrigation under the hot summer sun. Plums are now coming into season.

February/March. Time to prune cherry trees, a haircut is usually done every second year to keep the height manageable using a tractor with special saws (see photo) which saves lots of time. Make sure trees retain their leaves by protecting/spraying with insecticide to combat aphids and cherry slug. Time to catch up with all the other jobs that need doing.

April/May. Leaf fall and trees heading towards their dormancy, shutting down for winter

May/June/July. Three sprays of copper to protect trees (like an antiseptic). This is a very important time as cherries need 800-1000 hours under 5 degrees to “set” the fruit, this is why they don’t grow in Sydney!!!!

July/August. A busy time with new orchard planting, old/dead tree removal, grafting (explained elsewhere), fertiliser spreading, and last minute plum pruning.

September. Spring has sprung. The grass and potential weeds need to be sprayed with ‘roundup’ mainly with a boom arm on the four-wheeler ATV.  Plum blossoms early Sept , cherries late Sept. A sea of white and an amazing aroma. At this stage we spray a fungicide at three intervals; at 5-10% blossom, 100% blossom, and at shuck-fall when the cherry is first exposed. Rain at blossom time is not good as the bees don’t bother to get out of bed to pollinate the buds, and blossom blight can occur which virtually destroys the chance of producing a cherry. It takes six weeks before the first varieties ripen .

Blossom Time

October/November .The pressure is on and there are a million things to do and luckily daylight-saving to help. Depending on the weather we spray for bugs-aphids and cherry slug-fresh leaf lovers and protection against brown rot brought about by excessive water and humidity. The cherries magically expand, change colour, need irrigation, and await your arrival. We leave all the cherries on the tree except some we pick for extra stock on the weekend when you need those extra kilos for friends at home!

December. The picking season is in full swing, Young and Wombat are buzzing with back-packers, professional pickers, Cherry-crazed tourists, and exhausted cherry growers. The season can end at any time depending on the weather-too hot or wet, or every cherry picked. Unfortunately they won’t grow again for another year! The 2003-4 season was strange as everything ripened two weeks later than usual, which took us into the new year. Each year there is always some new quirk of nature which keeps us on our toes and proves that nothing is certain, and that mother nature is a fickle master. Now about that holiday?