Wednesday Walkabout SAFF

Wee tiny mayapple initial fruit set. They grow to the size of a plum. 1.5 to 2 inches
Virginia bluebells, Mertensia virginica, blooming in the old colony pawpaw patch. Beautiful and attractive to pollinators in the foreground. Perfoliate bellwort, Uvularia perfoliata, in the background.

We visited Saint Andrews Forest Farm yesterday afternoon and went to check on the Asimina triloba as we walked around the woods. In every patch (Southside gully natives and Rappahanock, old clonal colony and newly planted cultivars and seedlings in the new orchard at the bottom of North Trail), we had frost damage. The new seedlings and cultivars and the Southside gully gang will rebound albeit wounded for the season. Our sad loss was down in the clonal colony where we spent hours pollinating from the wild. We had a lot of frost damage. We’ll see. We saw tiny green bananas still hanging untouched by the cold. It definitely will impact our fruit this year. We did not expect it since temperatures were reported as 33 degrees. We think they may have been especially sensitive since it was also very dry here. The drought is ongoing. We had sprinkles yesterday while we walked around but still no significant rain.

Tallahatchie cultivar Asimina triloba hit by frost and will hopefully rebound.
Southside Sally and her gang got hit by the frost we were sad to see.
Rappahanock cultivar was filling out and getting fluffy before the frost.

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