We had a fabulous peach harvest this year even though we had a hard freeze the night our peach tree was blooming. We covered several of the branches with large sheets and it looks like those are the only branches that produced fruit. Because the harvest was small, the peaches were extra large. This was a good reminder for us to always thoroughly thin our peach tree each year.
I also need to remember in years going forward to wait until the peaches are a golden orange all around with no trace of green and plan to pick in 3 batches. Once the peaches start to ripen they look ready outside in the sunlight but it really takes an additional week of patience until they are ready to pick.
This was a late year for us. In 2011 our first peach was ripe September 12th with 1-3 peaches ready to eat each day until September 21st when we bottled 60% of the tree. We picked and bottled the remaining 40% on September 23rd. We bottled 35 quarts this year.
Can you tell me what type of peach trees you planted, how many trees & how long before they produced their first crop? Love your blogs by the way! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind comment. I have a Lemon Elberta semi dwarf peach tree. Some peach trees produce a few fruits the second year, but you'll get your first good size harvest starting in year 3.
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