One interesting aspect of food is how it is grown, raised or produced, and the beauty it brings to us during the process. For example, I have the luxury of watching quite a few fruit trees in my yard, from start to finish, year round, enjoying the blooms, the buds, the leaves, the fruit, and even the seeds. To showcase the beauty of growing your own products, I have chosen this little peach tree in my yard to observe and share with you throughout its peak season.
But first, a little bit of history of this little tree. The house, the land, and all of these precious little trees were passed down from Charles' grandparents to his father, and then to Charles and I. In 2003, before my husband and I got married, we had all of the fruit trees pruned, even this little tree. The result was...well, let's just say...we didn't think it was going to survive. We simply left it alone after the pruning with all faith that it would come back the next year. Actually, it bared miserable looking blooms for the next couple of seasons, and we had given up all hope that it would ever produce any fruit. But boy, were we wrong!! In 2010, it gave us one big fat peach...only the best tasting peach I have ever put in my mouth! The "crop" that year wasn't very abundant, but the one peach that we had was well worth the wait. Unfortunately I have no photos of it, probably because it took the most direct route to my belly. In 2011, it produced abundantly, but we were then disappointed by extreme temperatures and drought, which did not allow the peaches to ripen. Hopefully that won't be the case this year.
March 6, 2012
This is the first photo, being used to compare the tree week by week. If you look closely, you can see the brand new tiny buds on the ends of each branch, just starting to poke their heads out, promising sweet juicy peaches. You can see just how little our "lil" peach tree is!
March 11, 2012
The second photo. Below you can see that the little buds are starting to barely open. Notice the light pink color. Also you can see the older growth, or the darker wood, vs. the newer growth, or lighter wood. Both will hopefully be bearing fruit this year.
March 15, 2012
Yeah! Only four days later, the blooms have started to open! Actually, there are quite a few clusters that have opened. Here you see them blossoming in the morning sunrise. I don't know about you, but it sure brightened my day...
Sometimes something so simple can be so lovely. I can't wait to taste the fruits of Spring & Summer. You gotta love it!
Stay tuned! I will be watching the "lil" tree week by week throughout the spring and summer. Ya'll come back now, ya hear!
Grapes. My mom and step-dad assisted my husband and I with the trimming back of the much dreaded grapevines. They hadn't been touched in at least 10 years, and were full of poison ivy, morning glory, and honey suckle. We spent many, many hot and sticky hours cleaning and pulling out unwanted plants by their roots. This was not an easy job. Ken cut them back first with a special piece on his weed eater. The vines bled abundantly. But much to our surprise, for the first time in the 9 years I have lived here, we have recognizable grapes! The new growth seems very happy, taking over the old chicken wire, which was originally placed by Charles' grandmother and grandfather. We are pretty sure that we have at least two different types of grapes, one on each side, one of them being the concord, which are harvested in the summer, and the other one being scuppernongs, which aren't harvested until the Fall. So far, I have only gathered small hand fulls at a time of the concord grapes, not really enough to do anything with. I am hoping they will do better next year since they were severely trimmed this year. There may be some grape jelly in my future for next year...we shall see!
