Peach Progress 2017

Our little orchard now contains five peach trees: a Bonanza (dwarf), Babcock (white peach), Mid-pride, Desert Gold, and Eva's Pride. We've enjoyed watching them bud, bloom, and fruit this season, and we're eagerly anticipating the harvest.

Here are some of the trees in early February:

 Mid-pride--our oldest and largest peach tree

Desert Gold  (just over a year old--it booms the earliest)

Cute baby with bare, pruned branch of Mid-pride

We had such a mild winter that the Bonanza and Babcock bloomed late. Jeremy thinks our peach crop will be less because the trees didn't get enough chill hours.

Here's the big Mid-pride tree in full bloom around my birthday (third week of February):

At the same time, the Babcock was just starting to push out little leaves (last year they bloomed at the same time):

Here's the Bonanza in full bloom on March 8th:

And the Babcock is finally blooming:

The Mid-pride is just about done with blooms on March 8th and making good progress leafing out:

By March 21st, we had lots of baby peaches on the Mid-pride!

And the Babcock was in its flowering glory:

Here's our most recent picture--the Mid-pride peaches at the very beginning of May:

I'll have to get some more pictures of the Babcock, Bonanza, and Desert Gold. Jeremy paper-bagged the three Desert Gold peaches a week ago, since they were turning color and we didn't want to risk attracting birds. He picked two of them today--they're semi-cling and came easily away from the pit, were a lovely orangey-red inside, and tasted pretty good except for the fact that he sprayed them with Neem oil only yesterday, and that definitely didn't taste good. We're glad the Desert Gold ripens about a month or more before the Mid-pride--having it extends our peach season.

The Mid-pride won't be ready to pick til June--probably mid-June. Perhaps the Bonanza and Babcock will wait till late June or July this year. Last year I think we picked peaches from the Bonanza before the Mid-pride.

I don't have any pictures of the front yard peach tree--the Eva's Pride. Whoops! I don't believe it has any fruit on it, though. It's just had one full year in our yard, and Jeremy thinks the one peach it produced dropped. Ah well.

A Peachy Weekend

Yes, it's a bad pun--but with our Mid-pride peach in full production, how could I avoid using it?

We really did have a nice weekend, despite the June heat. As we discussed plans Friday evening (or set impossible goals for home improvement and cleaning and cooking), Jeremy suggested taking the kids to the zoo. I balked, but eventually came around to the idea. So we ate a quick breakfast and got out the door as soon as we could Saturday morning (after the obligatory sunscreen session, which is always interminable torture).

Sweet Clara went with the flow, as she usually does. She took a short nap in the stroller as the big kids played at the zoo splash pad. (Josiah made a new friend and had tons of the fun; the girls got cold a little too quickly and, while they enjoyed it, didn't have quite as much fun as we hoped.) We hit a few animal sights--the new tiger exhibit, the orangutans, the camel, the anteater, the otters. All three wanted to visit the farm area, so we went there after they tired of the splash pad. They all loved the goats--even Abby and Clara!

Lydia is a born animal-lover

Clara liked pulling on this little goat's ear

I'm glad Abby has overcome her former fear of the goats! She was sometimes leery of livelier ones, but touched and petted several

I didn't get pictures of the splash pad or other areas of the zoo. We left--hot, tired, and hungry--around 11 a.m. and came home for lunch and naps/rest time.

Saturday evening we did some of our around-the-house chores, and we spent some time in the back yard both Saturday and Sunday. The kids picked most of the ripe cherry tomatoes, and I worked on the peach tree. Clara enjoyed watching everyone and picking at the grass:

Jer worked on bikes and mowed the lawn.

As usual, there were some "little lamb" or "little goat" games going on at times . . .

Abby

Our crazy-haired girls got all hot and sweaty running around. While these aren't the most flattering of Lydia, I'm struck by how old she looks. Please don't leave toddlerhood so soon, Girlie!

And the cute boy, who gets longer and leaner by the minute, it seems (he also references time by "a long, long, long, long time ago when I was four" or "after I turned five"):

Meanwhile, in the yard . . .

1. Our lemons are green and hard but growing! We won't see these ripen till fall.

2. Our disappointing peppers are still going strong. We bought plants labeled as bell peppers. Unfortunately, they've all produced these long, thin, bitter-tasting peppers instead. Em and James thought they were poblanos; Dortha suggested Anaheim. I'm not sure, but we don't really like them unless they're wholly disguised by other flavors.

3. Ah, but the peaches! These more than compensate for sadder crops around the yard. Our Mid-pride peach tree is loaded this year with beautiful fruit. We netted the tree a few weeks ago in anticipation of the bird horde descending as soon as the peaches started ripening. Good thing we did! Birds have still gotten into a peach here or there, but we've protected most of them. It looks like some bugs have attacked some of the peaches--we've seen cat-facing, bruising, etc. on some, but we haven't seen the actual bugs this year.

So far I estimate we've picked about 100 lbs of peaches from the mid-Pride. This box-full was just from Sunday night's picking:

And as you can see, we left plenty on the tree to swell and ripen for a couple more days:

While the peaches deserve the spotlight, our grapes are worth mentioning, too! The flame grapes (red) are ripening before the Thompson seedless (green). Here's a bunch that the children quickly devoured the other night:

Jeremy has brought in a couple bunches of green ones, too, and those are tasty, if still a bit on the tart side. The flame grapes are so nice, though: plump, crisp, and sweet (though much smaller than ones at the store).

So there's a glimpse of life lately: petty peachy, hm? But of course, not everything stayed peachy for long . . . we ended the weekend with Abby and Josiah throwing up as we entered the wee hours of Monday morning. Ah well--c'est la vie when you have small children.