Fruit 2010

With the last hard freeze, I believe the set up was there for a great fruit crop this year and it looks like I might be right. Many old fruit men think it is not only the number of frost day but having one or two really cold days that sets up the year for a grand fruit crop. The fruit trees here at Draco are packed beyond their limits with gorgeous, tasty fruit and Ol' Bob has been eating plums and peaches every morning and every evening.

Plums being my favorite fruit I have two plum trees, both of which are Santa Rosa. One was supposed to be a Methley but I think the label was wrong. No problem as Santa Rosa is an excellent eating plum and I have been eating them since I was a kid.




I'm very lucky that the three peach trees I have get ripe at different. It makes it much easier to deal with as far as keeping the varmints out of them and dealing with all that fruit in the kitchen as well. All the peach trees I have are great producers with great tasting fruit and two are freestone. I would tell you what they are but I don't know. I want to know, I just don't. All these trees were bought from different nurseries, at different times, and they were all labeled Nectarines. That's right, the peach with no fuzz. The answer was the same from all three nurseries when I took them a peach from my nectarine tree and asked them about it. Oops. Yeah, that's about it. I used one of my holes dug by backhoe and $36 worth of dirt on a tree I didn't want and all I got from them was oops. I was really mad back then. I'm not so mad any more. You can tell why when you see the pictures. This is the first peach tree to get ripe and it's the worst of the three. It's hard to believe, but it gets better with the other trees.



In the next photo, if you look close on top of the top peach is a member of my ground crew. Daddy Longlegs usually only go out in the evenings or at night as they seem to be very light sensitive. The fruit trees are so heavily leafed that they can stay in the trees all day, just looking for some hapless little bug to eat. And they are as the trees are "crawling" with them. I believe they are the best predator bug you can have in your garden. I've set and watched them eat aphids by the zillions. Keep your little orange Lady bugs, I'll stay with my Daddy Longlegs.


With so many peaches I had to start holding the limbs up with boards and that was after some serious thinning.


And, while I did lose some to the squirrels, I didn't mind with this many peaches.
Even though this tree is about over the next one is only a week or so from producing another round of delicious peaches for Lyn, I and friends.