What a great day. We met in Kingsburg, Ca and began with a plum orchard next to a peach orchard just south of Kingsburg a few miles, and just east of Hwy 99. The plum trees with their dense white blossoms were peaking, as were the almonds, while the peach and nectarine orchards were just getting going. I don’t think we saw any cherries blooming – I think they were put off by the wet weather.
Plum Blossoms
Almond Blossoms
From their we traveled north following the the Blossom Trail Route laid out in a map online I had downloaded. A local rancher told us where to find some peaking blossoms – so occasionally we bypassed the map route for more obvious blossoms. We traveled north and east from Kingsburg to Sanger, and then back around. We stopped at every orchard that looked promising.
Plum blossoms - Open and Closed
While I’ve shot a great deal of orchard images in the past, I shot a lot of macro images with my 60mm F2.8 macro lens. There is something intriguing about close up images showing the petals and stamens – the different colors of the specific trees. We found peach orchards with great displays, yet really never got on any peaking nectarines – I’m not sure why or if they normally follow the peaches. In the past the almonds were first, followed by the plums, peaches, nectarines, and finally the cherries.
Peach Blossoms
I’m sure the wetter and cooler than normal spring made the blossoms come a bit later than last year, at least at peak. But it was still spectacular. As I write this blog more than three weeks later there are still some stone fruit orchards blooming around northern Tulare County.
