This week I have primarily been working on the peaches, pruning and beginning to prepare some ground for a new planting this spring. Since I don't expect many peaches I am taking this year to prune a little more aggressively, so that we can generate more one year old wood for next year. Peaches produce on one year old wood so the new branches that grow this year will produce peaches next year. As I am pruning I can see quite a difference in the winter hardiness of the different peach varieties. Some of the less hardy varieties may be removed if they do not have other outstanding qualities, such as flavor or a unique time of harvest.
Deciding which peach varieties to plant has been very challenging. The perfect variety would have great flavor, large size, wonderful color, excellent winter hardiness, be very productive, have a nice shape and be very firm. Obviously no peach possesses all this, so we are forced to make choices. Many peach varieties today have focused on large size, good color and firmness for shipping. Since we sell locally we have the ability to select our varieties emphasizing our preferred attributes more. When we pick a variety our top three criteria are:
1 The peach must have a very good to excellent flavor.
2 It must be winter hardy enough to consistently produce in our valley.
3 It must be productive enough so that we can sustain our farm with the income.
Because of this our fruit will be different from what is available in the supermarkets. To get the peaches with the flavor we want we have selected varieties that emphasize flavor over appearance. We have made our selections very deliberately in the hope that the flavor will so grab your attention that other factors will not be an issue. We hope that those of you who buy our fruit will agree with us.
Deciding which peach varieties to plant has been very challenging. The perfect variety would have great flavor, large size, wonderful color, excellent winter hardiness, be very productive, have a nice shape and be very firm. Obviously no peach possesses all this, so we are forced to make choices. Many peach varieties today have focused on large size, good color and firmness for shipping. Since we sell locally we have the ability to select our varieties emphasizing our preferred attributes more. When we pick a variety our top three criteria are:
1 The peach must have a very good to excellent flavor.
2 It must be winter hardy enough to consistently produce in our valley.
3 It must be productive enough so that we can sustain our farm with the income.
Because of this our fruit will be different from what is available in the supermarkets. To get the peaches with the flavor we want we have selected varieties that emphasize flavor over appearance. We have made our selections very deliberately in the hope that the flavor will so grab your attention that other factors will not be an issue. We hope that those of you who buy our fruit will agree with us.
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