Fruit growers celebrating cool weather while Windsor-Essex shivers

While many in Windsor-Essex peer through snowy windows in search of spring, fruit growers in the county are actually enjoying the cold spell.

After a weekend that included wild winds and freezing rain, one might think orchard owners would be worried about their trees, but Leslie Huffman said the opposite is true.

Huffman and her husband own a farm and operate a well-known fruit wagon on County Road 50 near Harrow.

Everybody is going to be shortly complaining that it's too hot. That's our prediction.- Leslie Huffman

"We've been actually pretty happy with the cooler and slower spring," she said, during an interview with Windsor Morning host Tony Doucette.

"It delays our first bud break and it delays us getting into our spring season," she added. "We have often started as early as March, so it's saved us from using pesticides. It's saved costs for us and gives us more time to get spring work done."

Huffman said even the layer of ice left behind by freezing rain isn't an issue because the trees are grown to hold heavy loads of fruit.

Andrew Thiessen has an apple U-pick farm in Leamington, and said he's also happy with the cold, although he expects it means the crops will be late this year.

"It's going to delay budding and bloom time this year, which also could help assist us with preventing future losses from late spring frosts," he explained.

That was a problem in 2012, and Huffman remembers that year very well.

"Spring was very advanced, and we went into an early bloom two to three weeks ahead of normal," Huffman recalled. "We had frost at a normal time, which was the last weekend in April, and it basically killed the entire crop, so we went through a whole year with no fruit."

Spring is coming

The Huffmans grow apples, peaches, pears, berries and vegetables, so even though the cold has kept the trees from blossoming, they're still busy pruning, planting and fertilizing for the growing season — something they promise will be here before people know it.

"Everybody is going to be shortly complaining that it's too hot," Huffman joked. "That's our prediction."