As Good As Gold

This has been a strange spring and summer for farmers across the country, and it's been especially hard for fruit farmers who knew early on that their harvests would be dismal. We had an exceptionally warm spell in April followed by a hard frost, which means that a lot of fruit trees blossomed early only to have those blossoms killed by the frost. Since fruit trees only bloom once a year, that means for many Michigan fruit farmers up to 90% of their crop was lost this year. This past week at the farmers' market I saw peaches being sold 4 for $5. That's more than $1 per peach! So for all you canners and freezers out there this might be the season to take off from storing tree fruits such as peaches and apples. Luckily for us we're not fruit farmers, although this dry spell isn't helping make things easier for any of us. This will be the last share with peaches in it, and when we say they're as good as gold we're not exaggerating!