First fruit blossoms

Have you ever stopped to really look at the word ‘blossom’? It’s a curious word; not quite encapsulating the joy you feel when you see your fruit trees in flower after a long winter.

I’ve just distracted myself with a bit of dictionary diving: Middle English blosme, from Old English blōstm; akin to Old English blōwan.  First Known Use: before 12th century.

Well that means that people have found the word appropriate for hundreds of years.  But I feel it needs to be more.  And blostm sounds like blister. And the buds and flowers are far from that.

Especially when you see the flowers with the background of a blazing blue morning sky.

I have taken a break from chores this morning and gone about the farm snapping shots of spring.

Naturally, being greedy, I’m thrilled to see the fruit trees have the most blossom.  My nectarine and peach.  The top potager cherry which you can see as the first picture here.  It is always first to flower.

The mass of cherries that line the road (almost 40 trees) are about a week away from glory, so I’ll save that shot for another day.

But the jostaberries are joining in; dear little blossoms that don’t look much, but promise much when they turn into divine fruit.

The green gauge plums beside the shade garden bank and Alice’s path are out. But they do remind me just how straggly these poor old trees are.

Come the growing season I rarely look up until the ripe fruit hits me on the head.  Plums don’t like pruning much.  And the darn things sucker.  But I’m planning for the future by planting three better green gauge and mirabelle plum varieties which will be better behaved from the start.

In a few years time, if all grows well, I can say farewell to these straggling, struggling beasts and pick lovely new plums from the newer trees.