No peaches this year.

[ducks4you]

I lost my old peach tree, but then I discovered it was about 35yo, so time to die. My 5yo peach tree had about 12 peaches last year, but this year, none. I just had my farrier out this morning and he said nobody has any peaches this year bc last winter was too cold. Anybody else have this?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don't have plums or peaches because a frost got the flowers. It wasn't that it was a late frost, it wasn't. I lost the flowers because it warmed up earlier than it should have, then the frost hit.

 

[seedcorn]

none here. guess last year I got 2 years worth

 

[digitS']

I'm not in your corner of the woods, @ducks' . I've got peaches ... maybe.

The dog, neighbor and I have tormented the squirrel so much that he hasn't been in the backyard lately. Last year, he got all of the 4 or so peaches from the tree. There was a late frost in 2013 and it looked very much to me as tho' the few peaches that remained were all in the middle of the tree and spared the coldest air.

This year, no late frost, not many squirrel visits but I'm not very confident. Oh, there are plenty of peaches on the little tree. It is just that it had such a difficult year in 2012 - I thought it was on it's way out. Maybe it was a good thing that it didn't have a 2013 crop. It grew leaves wonderfully! Very little leaf curl last year or this - sprayed with sulfur in March.

I've got 4 boards supporting branches but I've decided to tie the 2 largest branches together. I've done that before - I have a mental image of the little thing splitting and that would surely be the end of it!

Steve

 

[Smart Red]

No sweet cherries, few pie cherries, no pears on my red bartlett, and very few plums. I didn't think we had a frost, but it seems many trees were frosted.

 

[journey11]

Mine didn't even form buds, so it wasn't the late freeze, it was something to do with the extra cold winter I guess. My pears didn't bloom either. My apples did bloom, got hit with the late freeze, set just a few and have been badly overtaken by fireblight anyway. No fruit for me this year other than the blueberries. (Didn't plant any strawberries this year, but the local U-pick said the cold winter didn't affect them, but bug problems did.)

MontyJ mentioned in another thread that his peaches didn't bloom either.

 

[Smart Red]

Oh, oh, oh! I did see my first persimmon flowers today with a few fruits starting. I hope there is enough time for the fruit to ripen. I may need to built a small plastic shelter if cold weather starts early this fall.

I am so excited to think I'll be getting fresh persimmons from my own tree!

 

[journey11]

Oh, oh, oh! I did see my first persimmon flowers today with a few fruits starting. I hope there is enough time for the fruit to ripen. I may need to built a small plastic shelter if cold weather starts early this fall.

I am so excited to think I'll be getting fresh persimmons from my own tree!

I'm not sure about the cultivated varieties, but the wild persimmons are softer and best tasting after a frost. That's really cool. I'm excited for you too. My DH would like me to get a persimmon tree started. He loves them.

I have a recipe for persimmon jam if you're interested.

 

[Ridgerunner]

@journey11 you might need two trees. Persimmons come in male or female trees. If you have some wild ones in your area you should be OK but be sure yours is a female tree. I've got two trees, one of each. Last year the female was covered while the male was bare. I've seen some starts on the female tree this year, not yet sure how thick they are going to be though.

I made persimmon jam last year from those. The recipe I found called for water but I substituted apple juice. One niece liked it so much she asked if I had any more. I couldn't wait for frost, they were drying up and getting really waxy, I was starting to lose them. But they were tremendously overripe.

@Smart Red I don't know how old that tree is, but if you are seeing fruit it should be a female. The first year mine bore fruit it did not have much, but the second year it was covered. It's still not that big.

 

[journey11]

I didn't know about them being male/female, thanks @Ridgerunner . We do have them everywhere around here wild, but the fruit is up so high that you can't reach it. Have to wait on them to drop on their own and fight the deer to get there first. I've not been able to get enough to use the jam recipe yet. I have a neighbor down the road that I don't know very well beyond a passing wave, but she has a cultivated one in her yard that is completely loaded each year. I need to work up the courage to ask her about them because she doesn't use them. The tree was already there when she bought the house. She trimmed off the bottom branches last year to make it easier to mow under.

The DD's and I were enjoying some apple butter on our toast this morning and I thought about how expensive apples will probably be this year at the orchard we buy ours from. (My 2 trees--when they do bear--are red delicious and don't make good cooking apples, but do make good ACV.) I foresee a lot of wild blackberry picking in my future if I want to keep those pantry shelves stocked this year. I have another neighbor who lets me pick grapes. But I am really going to miss having that wonderful peach jam on the shelves this year.