The Best Kind of Peaches

What are the best kind of peaches? Imagine a tree full of them just outside your front door. They are nearly ripe, and when you finally get them off the tree to taste, they are best pieces of fruit you ever ate.

Now lucky for me, the Anzac Peach tree was in its fourth year this Summer (which is now in Australia),  and yielded 3 dozen or more of this delightful fruit.

I’ve been lucky to avoid most of the Peach Leaf Curl that other growers seem to get. Not sure exactly why although it might have something to do with the worm tea sprayed on all the plants at the start of Spring, and then every month or so until mid-Summer. Most as foliar feeding, some in the soil. I’d like to think that adding the coffee grounds into the surrounding soil makes a difference (and by extension as one of the worm farm ingredients that eventually becomes worm tea), and maybe it does. Also pruned a bit harder this season, allowing more air and sunlight onto the leaves. Either way, something is working and the resulting fruit is just so much better than anything you can buy.

Something I tried for the first time this year was to reduce the number of fruiting buds, and then continued to thin out the growing fruit until there were about 40 peaches ready to pick. The birds got to some, they always do. But there was enough to share this year :)

So for all you good folk up the North side of this mudball, your Spring is close. You have peach flowers and the resulting fruit to look forward to. As for us here in Melbourne Australia, the peach trees will be sleeping for a while. Maybe next year the Anzac will give me 50!

Peach Tree Fruiting