The Peach Report, I

A little breeze started blowing every time I took a picture so the fruit closest to the lens is fuzzy.

A few days ago I got my answer about the pollination success of the early blooming peach tree. I discovered fruit on it while I was shooing one of the dogs from that area of the yard. (It’s fenced and supposed to be off limits.) To say I was excited would probably be an understatement. Some of the peaches are already bigger than the end of my thumb, and they seem to get a little bigger each day.

Until this point I haven’t really done anything special with my trees except to plant them with MiracleGro soil for trees and try to keep them watered. Since the rain is getting stingy again, I’m going to have to get back into the watering groove. Five gallon buckets with a hole in the bottom are a good way to water without straining restricted supplies. They will sit by the trees and be refilled as needed. Some grooming of the trees is needed too. There are suckers growing at the bottom which are probably from the grafted root stock, so they have to be pruned off. And most painful of all, I will have to remove some of the fruit. It’s necessary, though. The remaining peaches will be bigger and healthier.

One more thing I might try is covering my developing fruit with brown paper lunch bags. An article in an organic gardening magazine explained the benefits of the technique for growing apples without sprays. Since this is my first crop of peaches I figured experimentation early on isn’t going to hurt anything. If the bags keep my fruit bug and disease-free, and they continue to develop while covered, then I will have a strategy for growing organic fruit from the very beginning. Besides, a package or two of brown paper bags will be cheaper than chemical controls, organic or otherwise. After the growing season, the bags can be added to the compost container or mulched.

During the growing season for the peaches, I will give updates culminating in a harvest of the fruit. (Hopefully) Feel free to follow along and learn with me.

The Project Queen