Discover what is happening at Southwind throughout the seasons…
WINTER
Trees lose all their leaves and go dormant to protect themselves from frost damage. This is the ideal time to start pruning as the trees will not sustain any damage from cuts. During the middle of February our crew begins pruning all 40,000 trees until the end of March. Pruning shapes the trees to a desired state, allows the trees to receive adequate sunlight, stimulates fruit growth, and manages the crop load. Our crew spends tireless hours on foot and ladder pruning every single tree to commercial standards:
Thank you Southwind crew!
SPRING
After a long winter’s rest the trees come out of dormancy, and they start to grow. The fruit buds develop a silver tip around the end of March, signaling the first stage of bug growth. From there the fruit buds’ cycle through the next stages until the full bloom where white flowers cover the entire canopy. Once the trees are in full bloom, we call our beekeeper from B@B honey farm who strategically places beehives throughout the orchard. The bees move from one tree to the next, pollinating as they go until their job is complete.
Thank you honey bees!
SUMMER
After petal fall tiny green/yellow apples emerge on the trees. The fruit slowly grows until they are ripened and ready to pick come harvest season. To reduce the crop-load our crew spends weeks hand thinning each tree by pinching off 3-4 apples per apple cluster. Hand thinning increases fruit size, improves quality, and allows for fruit set in the next year. We leave one or two of the largest “King fruit” on each cluster, which become the apples that will be harvested in the fall.
FALL
The time we have all been waiting for! Apples are carefully hand-picked from the end of August until the middle of October and brought to the packing line where they are washed, polished, and graded. Our retail staff bags each apple by variety, grade, and size. They are then put on display in our store cooler so they can be taken home by you. Be sure to stick around throughout the season as our 28 varieties ripen at various t