Thoughts of a Middle Aged Man

Many years ago, Annette and I planted a peach tree in our backyard, which according to the local nursery, was a special hybrid that would produce peaches even with the mild winters we have close to the pacific coast. Over the years we got some delicious peaches, but usually a small crop of only a few dozen peaches at most each season. I did by a book on how to prune a peach tree and followed their directions, but our crop seemed to get smaller each year. Last fall, we had the tree professionally pruned, and we put a net over the tree to help keep the birds from getting most of the fruit. We figure the professional pruning was the main reason we got a bumper crop of peaches. I wouldn’t call it a bumper crop, an avalanche of peaches is a better description. We thinned out over 300 peaches, just as the fruit set, and this week, we picked over 150 peaches.

So, what did we do with all of these peaches? Peach jam, peach cobbler, peach pie, peach pop cycles, all with peach margaritas to wash it down. We froze a bunch of peaches waiting for more peach recipes. Some of the recipes need work (peach jam, good taste, too runny) and others are outstanding (Annette’s peach pie). We will work the frozen peaches to perfect the recipes prior to next year’s crop. We were also so excited about our huge crop, we are planning on adding an apricot tree to our backyard orchard.

If someone has a great peach recipe, please add a comment, and we will give it a shot.