Timber Peaches

When we think about peaches, I think we all remember our favorite song..the one about ripe peaches growing in the shady forest?  Biting into a peach wearing a summery outfit of brown Carhartt bibs and a puffy jacket?

Maybe that’s just me.  But also when I think about peaches, I think I should be able to grow them in my yard.  We have done so much with science, why can’t I have a delicious cold hardy peach?  I don’t care if it produces 2 peaches a year, it’s worth it!

So in 2014, the peach quest began.  We bought a Reliance and a Red Haven as bare root stock and planted them in the spring in a protected area north of the garden.  I watered them like clockwork once a week and they did great the first summer.  They say peaches can really put on growth, and it’s true!

In the spring the Reliance had beautiful hot pink blossoms and the Red Haven, 15 feet away, had been zapped.  The Red Haven had been a gamble.  It was zone 5, and we try not to buy above a zone 4, so we learned a valuable lesson…which we repeated with a sweet cherry in 2015.

By 2018 the Reliance had proven its winter hardiness, but was growing more slowly than the other fruit trees and had only produced peaches one season.  They were small, hard peaches that did not fully ripen, which I’ve read is common in young Reliance peaches.

We had wanted a Contender peach for years but hadn’t been able to find one.  They are supposed to be one of the best cold hardy peaches for northern climates.  Finally one of our local nurseries had them in stock in spring of 2018, and we paid an extravagant amount for a huge peach tree with tiny peaches already decorating its branches.

We planted the Contender peach smack in the middle of our new garden expansion, in full sun.  Of course we pulled off most of the tiny peaches!  But I couldn’t bear to pull them all off.  What if it never set fruit again?  I bought a box of one million of the socks you use use when you try on shoes, and I tied up half of the peaches in a little sock sling.  I carefully kept it watered and worried all summer that 6 peaches would be too much for it to handle while it was putting down new roots.

Those peaches grew and grew and turned the most beautiful rosy blush color, and by August they smelled amazing but were still very firm.  The socks seemed to protect them from every pest except ants, who chewed some bites out of the base of a few of the peaches.

When we finally got to eat a few peaches, so ripe they came off the tree into their sock slings (ha!), they were AMAZING.  SO good.  I didn’t know what to expect from a cold hardy peach.  It’s hard to find objective taste tests online!  It was as good as any store bought peach I’ve ever had, perfectly ripe, freestone, great flavor and firm texture.

I hope this isn’t the last season we ever get peaches, and I hope our Contender peach doesn’t die over the winter because it produced 6 delicious peaches.  The tree looks pretty healthy.

There is a Veteran peach on its way for spring of 2019…we’ll keep you posted.