First fruit visible

Here at Withoek we are busy finishing up the new plantings. The finishing touches sometimes takes longer than the actual job. Poles being planted must be done as well as the plastic mulch covers. The covers in the case of the drip irrigation will go over the drip lines. This makes the dripper doing his / her job under cover literally. With the huge loss to evaporation of the water then sort of more controlable. The micro irrigation is more of a problem. The micro easily blocks so it must be cleaned regurally.
The first leaves on the apricot plantings allready shows and even the Chenin blanc allready shows buds swelling. Very promising.
The apricot harvest looks smaller than the previous season due to a frost in mid August. The peaches funny enough which is higher up in the valley were not affected as much. The peaches is allready nice sizes and we will have to start to do the thinning very soon. The idea is to do it before the pip inside the peach hardens. When that happens most of the division of cells stopped and the only way the peach can grow is by enlarging the individual cells. You thus have a limitation on size because of less cells. This also is the case for the other stone fruit - apricots and plums. We will also thin the plums and the apricots designated for the fresh market.
At the fruit drying plant we started last week with the washing of the stellations. This is done by hand and is quite labour intensive. With less fruit we hope that quality and size will make up the difference at least in our financial statements.
Withoek also have a clean up project going. We provide all our labour houses with a rubbish bin so that they can clean up around the houses. It really is a process making people acknowledge the need for clean surroundings. A clean enviroment also will sort of lead to a healthier family.