Did you know that all blossoms are flowers, but not all flowers are blossoms?
Flowers are basically the reproductive parts of all flowering plants, found in many different colors and shapes. Blossoms are also flowers, though they are flowers of fruit trees that flourish in spring, usually found in pink and white. That’s why we call our little flowers blossoms.
No matter whether they are a flower or a blossom, their main purpose is to attract pollinators in order to fertilize the plants and ultimately reproduce. Pollinators can be anything from butterflies, bees, birds, and other insects. One of the main reasons we work so hard to cultivate our farm’s ecosystem is to encourage a diverse group of pollinators to make it their home. The more pollinators that we have buzzing and flying around, the easier it is for our trees and plants to procreate.
The underlying idea here is pervasive throughout organic and sustainable farming. This idea is that it is in the farmer’s best interest to work with nature rather than against it. This seems like a simple concept, but it is exactly the opposite of mainstream farming practices. We are finding out now that nature is bucking these practices in many ways, through increased natural disasters, rising temperatures, rising sea levels, etc. This has little to do with the difference between flowers and blossoms, but it’s certainly the most important paradigm of our farming revolution.
Full blossom
Seeing the apple and pear trees in blossom for the first time was sensational! Every step of this process is completely new and extremely exciting even when it goes as it should. The trees only came to the farm a short month earlier in boxes from New York and Pennsylvania. They are all around 2 years old and looked like little sticks with hairlike roots. We all had our fingers crossed that the trees would be happy in their new home.
After seeing the first Bud(die)s on the trees there was a sigh of relief that we had not messed anything up yet! Soon after the buds appeared the blossoms began to open. We were all so surprised by the unique scents each variety of trees possessed.
The scents ranged from rose to white flowers. Each is slightly different but equally brilliant.
We can’t wait to see and taste all 25 different varieties of pears and apples side by side. This will not happen for another 2 years. These types of fruit trees take around 5 years to become fully mature and produce a full crop of fruit. So, as we did this year and will do for the next couple of years, we will remove the blossoms from our trees. This step tells the trees to focus on growing and using their energy to build their wood and roots.
Keep following us along here and on Instagram to hear more about the progress at Bona Fide Beverage!