Harvest Monday 7.8.13

Guess What? It's STILL July! <3 and I'm still in love! :-D I just can't help myself.

 

This week brought peaches. Not Florida peaches, not Georgia peaches but the first of the peaches from the bare root trees I planted in Alabama. I'm proud to have them, but I could have had more if I had been greedy. When we first got there it was raining, but not hard. I picked 2 peaches, we divided them and then I went out immediately and got 2 more and did the same. It was just enough to satisfy our sweet tooth for dessert that night.

 

 

The next morning it was pouring and on the way from one cabin to the other we each grabbed a peach and munched our way across the lawn. Unfortunately the wind had picked up over night and knocked off a lot of the peaches as they were all just about ripe. But the winds continued and the rains were not about the quit that day. We were sequestered inside and I thought I would go out and gather the fallen fruit to make a cobbler once things calmed down. I should have gone out into the storm - or just gathered them all off the tree when we first arrived. By the time I managed to get out there hail had moved through and damaged the fruit so badly and then the continued rain just washed the rest of the fruit off of the pits. There was nothing but pits and mush left. What a sad state of affairs. There was a good 20 peaches that were wasted. Granted these peaches were small as the tree is small and it held a lot of fruit, but they were bursting with flavor!

 

The rest of the newly planted trees (year and half old now) did not produce any fruit. They weren't expected to. Added bonus if they did but it wasn't expected. Peach trees just seem to mature faster for some reason. But, I'm so glad that they are planted and really growing nicely. They all came out of dormancy and are growing wonderfully. The apple trees are healthy, the plum tree looks fantastic the peach trees obviously are doing well. It's especially good that the plum tree is doing good. The ancient one that we have been depending on that is up with the pecan trees? It didn't come out of dormancy this year. It appears the lichens that have been growing all over it have finally zapped the last of it's strength. Most of the wood is brittle now and there is not much chance that even with the removal of the lichen growth that the old tree could survive. It will be removed when we go back in the Fall. There is a quick trip planned for September, but it's much too fast for that project. The diseased wood will need to be burned to be properly disposed and we wouldn't have time. Better to leave the tree in place for the time being. Besides saying goodbye to an old grandmother tree which will be difficult I guess this means we'll also have to make a decision on what type of plum to replace it with. We had hoped that the plum we planted would cross pollinate with it, but now we'll have to purchase a second tree to pollinate the first. There are wild plum trees in the woods but pollination would be spotty at very best as the home site is much higher than the surrounding woods and the pines have grown so much that they would block most of the pollen from getting through.

 

Oh, and that leads me to a whole other huge post on decision for the property. Unfortunately the rain didn't let up the entire time we were there so even though a LOT got accomplished there isn't a lot of pictures to share. :-(

Um, and I have to decide if I should get rid of a bossy hen that is picking all the feathers from another hen and making her miserable. She's grabbed me more than once, too. The kids will be sad, but new chicks would be good, right? *sigh* Decision time here, too.

See you soon!

Barbie~