Dead, wilted blossoms.

That was what many farmers in the Roanoke area and elsewhere in the mid-Atlantic found Monday as they rummaged through their orchards trying to assess the damage of the weekend freeze on this year's early-blooming crops.

Peaches, cherries and plums were hit particularly hard by the three days of frost, with some farmers already reporting total losses of each crop this year. Some varieties of apples also suffered, as did many grapevines that were already showing shoots -- although many agricultural experts say it's too early to determine the extent of the damages. Forecasters were anticipating another big chill this morning, with temperatures expected to drop as low as the mid-20s.

The losses will certainly trickle down to the Roanoke Farmers Market, where some vendors predict a scarcity of certain fruits and higher prices.

Some fruit varieties may have to be trucked in from elsewhere, farmers say. Given the widespread nature of the freeze, which has chilled regions as far south as Georgia and across the eastern panhandle, that may mean getting the fruits from the North or the West.

"We're totally reliant on peaches that come in locally and from North and South Carolina," said Tim Belcher, who sells plants, fruits and vegetables at the City Market. "But now they'll have to be shipped in from Pennsylvania and New York, if they didn't get hit as well."

A freeze in April is nothing out of the ordinary, but this year's cold spell lasted much longer than others and swooped in at a time when many fruit trees were already in full bloom -- a result of unseasonably warm temperatures in March.

"This has been a notable freeze," said Dave Wert, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Blacksburg. He said normal readings for Roanoke in April are between 42 and 66 degrees.

The past several days have averaged 20 to 25 degrees below normal for this time of the year, and some rural areas near Lynchburg and Danville have reported record cold, Wert said. "You may get a freeze of this magnitude every 10 years," Wert said. "It certainly doesn't happen often."

For farmer Tom Guthrie, that temperature dive translated into substantial losses for his farm near Boones Mill, which gets about 60 percent of its income from fruit sales.

By Monday, Guthrie was tallying up the damage. His entire crop of peaches -- about 10 acres' worth -- were gone. So were the cherries, plums and about 75 percent of his apple crop, including all the Red Delicious variety. Guthrie said he couldn't remember a peach loss like this since 1985.

Those fruits will also be missing from his table at the city farmers market, Guthrie said. The same is expected to be true of other vendors.

"I think it will be very short this year," said Charlie Lavinder, a longtime produce vendor at the City Market. Coming into the weekend, his apple trees were in full bloom, looking like "snowball bushes," he said. Now, they are dead, along with his entire peach crop. That's about 5 acres of fruit, he said.

Peaches, in particular, are expected to be in short supply this year, and prices are expected to surge to almost double what they typically cost, farmers say.

Belcher said peaches typically sell for 99 cents to $1.49 a pound, depending on the size, quality and time of the year. "This year I'm anticipating them being a $1.49 and up," he said.

Another produce seller, Mark Woods of Woods Farms, said the freeze wiped out about 90 percent of the fruit crop on his Franklin County farm, where he has about 30 acres of plums, nectarines and cherries, and another 30 acres of apples.

"It's really hard to see what's there because there are so many dead ones," he said, adding that he's already going to plan B --planting potatoes, corn, squash and other garden vegetables to sell.

He said he gets about 75 percent to 80 percent of his income from selling produce at the market.

Hope Hollingsworth, the market manager for Downtown Roanoke Inc., said she was aware of -- and saddened by -- the farmers' losses. "There's nothing like coming down and seeing the Woods family table full of peaches," she said. "That's their Christmas season."

Vineyards are also in a precarious position, said Tony Wolf, a viticulturist and director of Virginia Tech's agricultural research and extension center.

Vines whose shoots have already begun to show usually can't tolerate such prolonged freezing temperatures, he said.

Betting on Mother Nature is a risky venture, farmers say, and it's not uncommon to see a crop go sour.

It's even expected.

"This is just the beginning of the season," said Danny Johnson, co-owner of Peaks of Otter Winery and Johnson's Orchards in Bedford County. "Before the apples come out on the tree, we've got to go through wind storms, dry periods, insects."

He estimated Monday about 80 percent of apples in the low-lying areas of his farm were lost to the freeze and 5 percent in the higher parts.

"We don't understand Mother Nature," he said. "We just have to go along with it."