Mornings in the peach orchard

It is cool and the light is soft and there is a morning breeze that rustles through the peach trees. When you are up in the branches of the trees you can smell the sweet odor of the ripe peaches and get a nice view of the garden below. This happens once a year, when the peaches are ready for picking, and it only lasts for a couple of weeks... so we savor this time.

 We know it's time because we can hear the birds gathering and quarreling over the sweet peaches. That means we need to be up with or before the birds! We grab our boxes, baskets, buckets, clippers and ladders. My husband and I have a method, it's a two man job. One of us is up in the tree filling a basket and the other is on the ground ready to empty the basket into a larger container.

We pick the peaches when they are still firm, but have a slight give. One of the most asked question is, " how do you keep the birds from getting your peaches?'  This is how we do it. We pick them and let them fully ripen inside on the kitchen table. The peaches ripen in waves... so we are up in the trees every morning to gather the next batch of ripe peaches.

We do taste tests as we pick. This is a Desert Gold. It's sweet and the flesh is pink and juicy.

From the top looking down.

Husband fills the basket and hands it down when full.

As we pick, we clean the tree of small, hard, green peaches that aren't worth the trouble. We pick bird pecked peaches, because they attract more birds. We do a little summer pruning while we are up there to thin out some of the dense growth and bring down branches that are way too long.

A mid pride peach. We are ready to share!

Now we're ready to set up the front porch peach stand. We let our neighbors know that it's peach season! One sign for the main road and one sign in front of the house.

We fill bags, all day long!

And then, our favorite part of the whole process... friends and neighbors! Lots of new friends and neighbors!

                   Thank you, for buying our peaches! We hope they bring a little sweetness to your life!