The Mystery of the Bumper Crops

 A bunch of us from Prairie Hill trekked out to Margaret and Dan Bailey's beautiful place in Cedar County yesterday. They have many fruit trees plus all kinds of interesting plants on their acreage. Margaret has been giving us plants for Prairie Hill ever since we started our project here. If there ever was a plant whisperer, she is one! And yesterday we went out to their place because they have had such a bumper crop of apples this year that they need some help doing something with them. They have taken many loads of apples to the local food bank, have made many many gallons of cider, and the trees are still full of huge apples, all kinds. Dan said that he doesn't remember ever seeing a bumper harvest like this. And we have been experiencing bumper harvests in our community garden as well. (If the deer hadn't eaten most of the things in my unfenced garden, I might have had a bumper harvest too.) We've been hearing of other folks in the area commenting that they have way more fruit and produce than they can handle this year. I wonder why.

Another strange thing is that even though my Night Blooming Cereus already bloomed this summer, it is breaking the rules and blooming again. Now there are eight huge new long buds on it, ready to open in the next couple of nights. And these are big buds, not wimpy last-minute ones. It really makes you wonder what is going on, not only with my night blooming cereus but with plants in general. I've heard two theories:

1. Just like potted plants that run out of root room and before they die they send out many blooms, one theory is that something bad is going to happen, the plants know it, and they're using their last energy to put out a huge final crop. (I hope that is not the reason!)
2. The other theory that I've heard is that we have an increasingly large proportion of carbon dioxide in the air, which is making the trees and other plants thrive as they bask in their favorite kind of air. (This is a little better than the first theory, but actually not that great for people, for it means we have less of our good kind of air to breathe.)

The interesting thing is that in most ways, this has been a very bad growing year, at least in Iowa. We have had months of drought and hotter weather than usual. It is only recently that we have gotten a couple showers, but before that the ground was like cement. One would think that this would not be a good year for harvesting fruit or veggies. I know that the yield of corn and soybeans (which is what most of the farmers grow here) is not good, though with new drought resistant varieties, the yield is much better with these conditions than it would have been 20 years ago. But most gardeners have watered their patches at least some in this drought, so those plants have had help. The apple trees, though, have been on their own.

I've done no research on why we're having such a huge harvest. I'm hoping some of you have theories. If so, please share them here! We brought back lots of apples and some gallons of cider that we made yesterday, so we'll be enjoying the fruits of those trees for quite awhile. As we were picking the apples on a couple of the trees, they seemed incredibly huge, one apple enough for several people to snack on. I'm hopeful one of you blog readers will come up with a theory of why bumper crops happened in Iowa this year. And maybe those of you from other states had bumper crops too?