And the means to that end is, of course, fruit. And the best fruit in the world (in our opinion) for delicious pie: peaches. And the best peach is a local peach. But better than local, even, is “micro-local,” (to coin a phrase) and straight off the tree! Hence: our recent installation of a peach tree.
Yes, for Mother’s Day this year, Mike procured a lovely wee peach tree from Scotian Gold and planted it in our backyard. He chose a spot which affords us a lovely view from our kitchen windows: we can gaze upon the lovely blossoms and ensuing fruit…next year, perhaps!
Happy Baby Peach Tree
Sadly, it would seem that this year is not going to be a fabulous year for peaches for anyone in the Valley. Joan’s peach tree, for example, was so overloaded with peaches last year that she was sharing them with all and sundry. I learned to can last year (from Joan, of course) and I produced Peach Marmalade and Peach Salsa. As delightful as canned goods are, though, the favourite in this house is Peach Pie. I really don’t think there is any fruit pie that can begin to compare to the glory that is a Peach Pie. Ah, deliciousness. This year, however, Joan’s tree had not a single blossom. This is in part due to an unusually cold winter here, but also due to a naturally occurring phenomenon called “biennial crop.”
Our tree: no blossoms, but LOTS of green stuff!
So: bienneal crop is a term I learned from Joany. Given my ignorance, I Googled said term for more info and I found this site. At first blush, this site looks like a learned comparison of how modern cultivated fruit trees are inferior to their wild brethren. However, Joan was kind enough to peruse this site and carefully craft a rebuttal.* With her kind permission, I’ve included most of her comments. I understand that this makes for a rather long post today, but I thought her information was fascinating even if you don’t take the time to read the site to which she is responding. To wit:
Pretty well all of the veggie seeds that we have available to buy to plant in our gardens are seeds that have resulted from years and years of breeding and selection. Carrots no longer taste bitter… some don’t even have cores anymore. Grain is one of the most bred-to-perfection thing that we have in the world. There are whole research stations in many different countries that are working on breeding selections to have shorter stalks and bigger heads. You cannot easily access “heritage” or “heirloom” varieties of grains anymore. Potatoes…. breeding programs are constantly working toward a better chip potato… better frying potatoes… and get this… they are trying to breed flavour back into potatoes for the regular mashed potato type of market.
Fruit trees, on the other hand, have a weird thing about them in that they will not grow an identical tree from a seed…. so the only way to end up with a piece of fruit like you have on a tree, is to graft a scion onto a rootstock….. you can also sprout roots onto the scion and grow the tree on its own roots, but you will usually end up with a humongous tree… so to control the size, they graft onto dwarf rootstocks. This practice has been going on for centuries. The way you get new cultivars of fruits are to pollinate by hand and then plant the seeds to see if there is one tree that may grow up to produce something worth eating. We have thousands of such seedlings here at the station… only 4 are being made into production trees currently.
And bienniel bearing…. this can totally be controlled by blossom thinning… if you have only one tree, you can hand thin. At an orchard scale, there are sprays that can be used to do this job…. even some organic options… and this year there is a study here at the station with a mechanical system that uses something that looks sort of like a car wash brush that beats the blossoms off the trees… great for the organic guys. We hand thin our peach tree. Some apple cultivars are more prone to bienniel bearing than others…. Honeycrisp are very prone to it…. Cortlands basically regulate themselves. And the trees aren’t “harmed” in regulating the bienniel bearing… if they were harmed, you would not end up with any fruit because the tree would give up. And the goal is to make the tree bear moderately each year… not heavily… with a heavy load, branches break and fruit size is smaller.
Genetic splicing is happening with grains, tomatoes and probably other fruits and veggies… but tree fruits is not involved in that, that I am aware of.
So… I would argue that tree fruits are actually MORE natural than carrots and potatoes and certainly more natural than grains.
And as far as post harvest processing…. apples go into storage and come out and we eat them…. grain goes to the mill and is cleaned and then ground and husks removed and then bleached and then packaged and then baked into something…..
AND THE BEST PEACH IS A LOCAL TREE RIPENED PEACH. That is the thing that is missing with our fruits and veggies that we buy at the markets. They are harvested before they are truly ripe, because they ship better and store longer if they are not totally mature. Therefore, they never get to completely convert their sugars and become flavourful.
(OMAFRA or Ag Canada sites are good for info on fruit production… they are government so they just state facts rather than opinions or product related pressures.)
And now back to your usual ignoramus:
Our peach tree is, of course, grafted onto a root. Joan pointed out that Mike had planted our tree exactly backwards, as one should plant the tree so that the graft faces the prevailing winds. This helps the tree to be as strong as possible, as you can imagine that two things joined together are weakest at the point of joining, and therefore you want the growing tree to be pushed toward the rootstock, rather than away from it by the prevailing winds. This site offers a wonderful explanation of how to go about planting your fruit tree.
Tree: meet root(stock)
There really is a lot to growing a fruit tree: from the precise soil mixture, the appropriate time (and how much) to prune, how to keep the buggies away, when to let it fruit and when to let it rest, and when/where/how to plant it. You, dear reader, are just as good at Googling as I am, I’m sure.
Ms Peach does need some pruning, but she seems to be in great shape over all!
I’m really just hopeful we get some peaches someday. In the meantime, we’re looking forward to enjoying our volunteer** wild strawberries that don’t mind if we walk on them, mow over them, and generally ignore them until we want a snack! Go volunteers, go!
Volunteer blossoms, too!
*Please note that while I welcome comments, I’m not an expert by any means, and I’m quoting my sister who is rather educated in these matters. I’m not interested, nor capable (in point of fact) in debating the various means of producing fruit in one’s backyard. It’s just a blog, man.
**which is, in my opinion, one of the funniest agricultural terms. I always get this image of little plants pleading (in high-pitched voices, naturally) “pick me! pick me!” Which, of course, only makes me laugh more. I’m so very easily entertained.