I tasted a peach that fell on the ground today. They are almost ready. I never buy peaches because every summer I get a full tree of peaches. For a month, I eat peaches every day to the point that I don't want to think about peaches for the rest of the year. There are two peach trees of different varieties on the farm. The big tree grows big fuzzy soft peaches while the smaller tree in the front of the house grows fuzzless crunchy peaches.
I can see that I don't have as many peaches on the big tree as I had in previous years. I believe there are two reasons that resulted in the smaller quantity this year. I pruned the main tree a bit late. Ideally I should have pruned it back after the peaches were gone in November or December. I didn't do it until February because I didn't know how to prune fruit trees. Secondly, it rained more and longer than usual this year. Last rain was on June 8th! Even though I sprayed the trees with copper sulfate twice, the trees are more infected with leaf curl than past years. Peach leaf curl is caused by fungus (see the brown tumor looking blob on the leaf in the picture below).
Nevertheless, I will have more peaches than I can consume in one month. Birds and squirrel will get their shares, and there will be peach cobblers and peach pies.
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