Peaches....Ready. Set. Go!

It has arrived....peach season!  I can't believe it.  I thought it would never get here!

It was a big decision to keep the peaches.  Peach production costs a great deal of money and consumes a lot of time.  A nieghbor commented that he never knew why tree fruit cost what it does until we planted peach trees accross from his house- he said the amount of work is crazy. 

Some people thought it was wrong of me to keep the trees.  One guy said, "You're going to loose you ass on those peaches."  My immediate thought was..."I really hope not...I work so hard doing all of those squats at Crossfit...I don't want to loose my ass."



To give you an idea of the amount of labor and time spent on peaches here's a little timeline:

January: I go with my gut feeling and decide to keep a portion of the peach orchard and begin to restore the rest.
February: I start pruning.  I think I can do it on my own.
March: I admit I can't prune all of those trees by myself and I get a little a lot of help from an amazing man named Jose.
April: The portion of the peaches we are not keeping get removed...making way for new trees to be planted for next year.
May: and we're still waiting.....
June: Peach trees are thinned.  This step is done with a nut harvester that shakes the tree and knocks off a portion of the peaches.  This is how nice big peaches are born!  Then it hails...I cry.  Thankfully, lots of good peaches still out there.
July:  lots of capital invested and 7 months later...they're ready!

I'm so excited to take these little guys to the farmers' market tomorrow.  And it will only get better. As we get more into the season the peach size will get much bigger and we will move from split pit varieties to (everyone's favorite) free stone.