Peaches - I have peaches!!

Every year the squirrels have stripped my peach tree. They pull off the small, unripe peaches - one after another - and take a bite and pitch, grab the next one and take a bite and pitch until the tree is bare. I have tried all sorts of remedies - nets, sprays, peppers, bags of soap, etc. - but nothing has worked... very frustrating.

This year the tree has produced so many peaches I have had to thin them out myself - which I really hated to do!

This is a dwarf Elberta I have had for about 5 or 6 years. Last fall I trimmed all the branches under about 4.5' and this spring I put the biggest squirrel baffle I could find around the top of the trunk. There is no tree close enough for them to jump on it. And jumping from the roof would be suicidal - not that that would stop some of them, but this is - so far - working.

I think I am actually going to harvest fresh ripe Georgia peaches - for the first time - this summer.

How cool is that! Good for you Sterling, you deserve to be proud :)

Success! I know how rewarding that feels. I've heard that some good CAN come from this drought because it can improve the sweetness of your peaches. I know it has for our watermelons here in the "watermelon capital".

Beautiful peaches. Glad you posted this. Good info for that dream day when I have peach tree(s).

Yahoo for your peaches. I know what you mean about the squirrels.......a nuisance!! They usually do the same thing to our corn.....take out a bite then go to another one......also the raccoon! Guess we'll just have to plant enough to share......LOL

Beautiful!!the reason I haven't grown a peach is because of nature too!The deer eat a bite out of every tomatoe on the vine,Rabbits stand on their hind leggs to strip the roses,I have to build a "chicken pin " over my rootings,because of the squirrels,oh!,and the fun thing , the neighbors dog digs up plants , looking for chipmonks. Still I try!!!Cayenne pepper doesn't work,Irish spring,no , objects hanging in the garden , you have to change often ,looking for something to be thankfull for, I don't have armadillo..Enjoy those elberta's,looks like you won!!!Mike

I would not mind so much "planting enough to share" but the squirrels do not even wait until the peaches are ripe - they strip the whole tree of the little, unripe ones and throw them all over the ground. They do the same thing to apple trees, I hear. A lot of animals seem to do this - take one bite and move on to the next piece. They destroy it for you without even enjoying it themselves.

I've got rabbits eating my ornamental grasses and toad lilies.... but hey - I have ripening peaches for the very first time!! And thankfully, I do not have deer...

Congrats, Sterling, your peaches look peachy!! For some unknown reason, I didn't even have the first bloom on mine this year. Had some small fruit last year, but nothing this year (it's about 3 years old.) Have some apples and tons of pears on trees on the same acre, but nothing this year on my poor little peach tree. Enjoy your harvest!!

mqiq77 - thank goodness the deer on my property only came by that one year and never returned. They didn't eat just the tomatoes. They ate the entire plant. ALL of them in one afternoon we were gone. The plants, which were about 2 1/2 to 3 feet high, were eaten almost to the ground - about 35 of them (and some that were still in the pots waiting to be planted). There went about 3 months of work for me (I had grown them from seed). The deer definitely went from "aww cute" to "vennison steaks would be lovely" in that one afternoon.

As for squirrels, fortunately in our neighborhood - despite being "in city limits" - we have quite the owl and hawk population. They keep the little squirelly population fairly low.

Sterling, good for you!! I remember talking to you about how the squirels took them all.. I've got a great crop of apples myself :) I have sprayed them with messenger and they don't have the ugly black spot exterior this year. Wonderful! :)

Susan

oooh - those are beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow! Those look scrumptious. We once had a small peach tree growing wild behind a rental property when I was young, but they never got very large. Even fully ripe, they remained the size of small green plums or large globe grapes. Never knew about the squirrel problem before. LOL I know you hated the loss of those previous peaches, but how cute to have squirrels in your yard. The place we live at now has tons of pecan trees everywhere, but the feral cats keep every animal but crows away.

Nice looking apples,Susan,are they "granny smith",looks like a good crop.Mike

Hi Mike, I haven't got the foggiest notion!! My father in law planted two of them years ago when my husband was a kid.. I don't guess he has any idea either.. Anyway, apples need to be cross pollinated to produce, so there were two. I had pines growing around them and they were growing lopsided to reach for the sun. A few years ago.. 91' or so, we kept having these torential rains and the one tree started to uproot and I was absolutely upset about the thought of loosing my apple tree. I made my husband chain it to a sweet gum and hold it up in hopes that it could hold on and make it. (times like that are when I'm so glad I don't have any neighborhood covenents) We painted the chain green to try to make it "blend" After a year, we released the chain and the poor thing swayed down just as bad as the day it uprooted.. so we had to have it removed. I didn't want to lose this one so I insisted that we take down the pines forcing it to grow out in one direction.. There were also pines too close to the house and diseased pines and we went ahead and took those down as well... We no longer sit and wait for a tree to hit the house every time a huge storm rolls through, thank goodness. But, It's not far flung to say that the beginning of my gardening obsession started with losing that apple tree as I then had all kinds of new space and sun to start the blank slate... Ever since losing the one apple tree, I have been very fortunate to have still had cross pollination. I discovered that a nearby house has an apple tree in the back yeard and I can only guess the bees are going back and forth and thank goodness for it!! :) I should plant another one since the owner of the house has already leveled another lot on our street and built a monster mansion and that apple tree is sure to follow.

Susan

So goes the neighborhood,and who buys these mansions anyway?Older more established,or young exs.beats me,but they are going big.

Yes they are.. gee wiz, don't they realize what a monster job it is to keep up a regular home and yard?.. I know they will be able to hire help, but I sure wouldn't want to "live" with staff and have them around all the time!!

The extremes of how different the lots look is quite amazing.. This would have never been done years ago, but it is now.. Nothing strange now about seeing an original 35 year old home with a huge out of place mansion next door. There was a woman around the corner who was an incredible gardener.. she retired and moved up to North GA and sold. I got a hold of the new owners after it appeared that they were letting the lot go to pot and she said that they had purchased the lot for the garden and no I coudn't dig up plants, as others were doing and I respected that. Even three years later, when the only things still there were the hardiest of them all and they were being covered by weeds, I didn't dig.. A few weeks ago, a bulldozer came through and knocked down the home. I drove in down the driveway to the curiosity of the operator and was relived that some of the garden was still somewhat "intact".. I drove by the next day and dump trucks were bringing in soil by the truckload after truckload so her foundation will be elevated, since there is a hight limit.. folks bring in red soil to raise the house and give a more grand impression. Any plants that were there were covered by truckloads of soil. It really makes me feel like becoming a criminal gardener!! I should take pictures and post..!! Pictorial gossip about my neighborhood!!

I have seen this happen so many times that when I feel the end is near for me, (hopefully, not for a long while!!) I will have provided for all of my plants that could be dug up, and allowed them to be given a new home.... I want them out of here and I'm not so crazy to think my garden will live on past my care.. The trees hopefully, but not the plants..

Susan

"A Georgia peach, a real Georgia peach, a backyard great-grandmother's orchard peach, is as thickly furred as a sweater, and so fluent and sweet that once you bite through the flannel, it brings tears to your eyes."
Melissa Fay Greene, American author

I had my first peach and it was every bit as good as I expected it to be!!!!!!!!!!!! Hot from the July sun and dripping with sweetness....

:) Happy for you.. My husband bought some peaches at a gas station roadside stand on Friday.. They were sooooo good that we went back to the same place for them yesterday! :)

Susan

You guys are making my mouth water. I am always amazed at how many people have no clue that peaches aren't supposed to be crunchy. When I was a kid peach juice alwasy ran down your chin when you bit in. I'm gonna make the rounds of roadside stands today looking for Georgia peaches! Sheila

Well, all my peaches are gone - I had friends come over who had heard my description and said "one peach? please?" Mostly people who have never had a perfect, hot, ripe peach right off the tree, or to whom it was only a memory.

They really do need to be HOT, right off the tree. Late afternoon is best.

soupcon: I DID have to say "watch the juice - it stains". I had forgotten about how the juice would run down your chin!! The flavor just explodes in your mouth! Those things in the grocery store bear no resemblance...

Now my son (28) is scouting my front and back yard for the best place to plant another Elberta peach tree. Has to be where the squirrels can't jump to it.

This thread has really made my mouth water...........LOL. Glad you had some really good ones. We are very close to the Georgia peach growing center so there are many roadside stands to buy them from.