To start, we drove out there Friday night. We then got up super early for a tour from my friend's dad who owns the Smith Orchard. Here are some pictures from our tour. He sells different types of apples, pears, and cherries. Nothing was blooming yet while we were there, but it was still beautiful to see all of the different types of crops.
Here is a picture of wild asparagus that grew along the canal. They would take their 3 wheelers out every year with some beer and cut some of these to make for dinner!
These are starting to bloom so I think this is an apricot orchard.
Sometimes when the temperature drops below freezing it is better to spray all of the trees so that the bud stays frozen at 32 degrees instead of reaching 17 or something lower than freezing. If it reaches below freezing the crops could die.
This is a picture of all of their wet dogs who just jumped in the dirty canal and then onto our trailer forcing us out. :)
This is a picture of a different orchard, but I love how you can see Mt. Adams in the background. The trees are white because of some type of irrigation he used.
This is called an EOT. (Engine on top) This is an older type of windmill, but these are used to help stir up the air throughout the orchards when they reach below 32 degrees. Papa Smith has an alarm set up to the thermometer so that he can come out and turn these on when it gets below 32. Yes there are automatic ones, but those are super expensive! He is such a good farmer!
The canal is their water source. I believe those are apple trees, but I'm not sure. After a while it gets harder to remember what is what.
Washington is so beautiful because of the climate! If you drive half an hour through this area you would run into so many different types of crops. Apricots, grapes, apples, pears, and cherries are only a few that you would see.The next posting will be about our Wine tours!
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