Our newest endeavor…. Peach trees. Here’s how it happened.
As I do every summer, I purchase peaches when they are in season and I see them
at a roadside stand or at the Farmer’s Market. I take home my purchase and after the traditional first peach cobbler of the season, I peel and pit the rest to make
jelly or jam or put them in the freezer (for non-seasonal cobblers). After peeling and pitting, I take the remains and add them to the compost pile or toss them over into the pasture.
One such “tossing” into the pasture several years ago resulted in a peach tree! One of the most convenient ways to raise fruits or vegetables – by accident.
We didn’t pay the little tree much attention as it was growing along a fence row with several other little trees – until 3 years ago when it was covered in peaches. They were delicious! And completely naturally grown! We started keeping an eye on it – cleaning up around the base, adding a little fertilizer or water, picking off a few peaches the next year when it had
even more peaches because we feared broken branches. My husband then decided if we could grow such good peaches with little to no effort – imagine what we could do if we had
trees we were growing on purpose! Hence, the recent additions to our newly established fruit orchard. As I have shared in the past, we have a scuppernong arbor, of which
most of the vines were resurrected from those planted by the original owners many years ago. We have supplemented those scuppernongs with a few grape vines, filling
in the blank spots along the arbor. Now the scuppernongs and grapes have been joined by 5 peach trees. We moved the volunteer tree from the pasture to the orchard
and purchased 4 more trees from a local nursery in Athens, GA. Having no experience growing peaches, I researched online for varieties hardy to Georgia while my husband contacted our local County Extension Agent for recommendations on growing and pruning peach trees. I’ll blog more about the details of care and pruning next time. Our new
peach trees appear to be happy, thus far, so we are hoping for a few peach samplings this summer. Of course, they need to mature before producing a full crop, but
the trees should produce a few peaches this year if we play our cards right. It’s just one adventure after another….Here we grow again….
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