Part of the land, at the time fifty years ago, was used as an orchard, cherry and apricot trees. As the years and decades passed, my parents sold off parcels of land for others to build. The cherry and apricot trees had to go. Today, I believe there's one cherry tree and an apricot tree remaining.
As a kid, I remembered bushels and bushels of apricots each summer. There was never a season without apricots. Now, I see life as an adult, no longer through child's eyes. Based on what I've experienced with growing my own apricots, there's no way those childhood memories are completely true.
Growing apricots in Northern Utah, it seems, can be tough.
We had a small apricot tree at our last house, and we have another small tree at our new house. The old tree did not produce apricots on an annual basis. Granted, the tree was not in the best of shape, but late frosts and other factors made it tough for the fruit to grow.
This year our new tree was doing great. We had so many apricots. Maybe it wasn't "so many," but it seemed that way and we were excited for our first harvest.
I should have remembered growing apricots can be tough, sometimes.
We watched as the fruit began to ripen, not to the point of picking, but soon. Then, the windstorm hit. We get a lot of wind up here--another storm is no big deal. But, when we went outside after it was over, we saw almost all the fruit on the ground. We had to throw it all out.
Bummer.
Oh well...we could go to any grocery store in the state and buy the same amount of fruit we lost for a few bucks. Not eating the fruit was not the point...it was not eating the stuff that grew on our trees we looked forward to.
There's no guarantee next year we'll get any, such is the way of things. I hope we do. But maybe not, because apricots can be so darn hard to grow.
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