Coffee's Ready, Come and Sit on the Porch

[Mini Horses]

Wow -- that cat's ME in morning, toooo often.

 

[CrealCritter]

Here is the first peach I planted (contender) it's in it's third growing season and standing about 12 foot tall. I've pruned it and trained it for open center and to have two layers of scaffold branches, starting on layer 3. I'm expecting flowers this spring. If all goes well, I will thin to around 30 to 40 peaches to mature. T-posts are about 5 foot tall for reference.

Did you know that peaches only grow on 1 year old wood? This is why it's important to prune every spring to produce new wood during the current growing season for next year's fruit

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[Mini Horses]

That's a lovely orchard area. . So green...do your ducks, chickens or turkeys get out there? They help with any bugs.

I'd need prison fence around those trees to keep goats away....10 min and even the tree trunk would be gone. . Experience.

I'm inside, waiting out this "10%" rain chance happening

 

[CrealCritter]

That's a lovely orchard area. . So green...do your ducks, chickens or turkeys get out there? They help with any bugs.

I'd need prison fence around those trees to keep goats away....10 min and even the tree trunk would be gone. . Experience.

I'm inside, waiting out this "10%" rain chance happening

The neighborhood guninees roam it at least twice a day. The green space behind the peach is going to become my production orchard or at least that's the plan.

I found a orchard in Tennessee that I can get really good prices for large number of same variety grafted trees but their varieties are very limited. I think would rather see what produces well in the mother orchard then graft my trees from the good varieties.

IDK... Multi year plan either way.

BUT... I have my favorite daughter in law hooked. I think she'll eventually end up with the orchards. Her input is important to me starting out.

We did start on a production cherry row already, you can probably see some of them.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

This is a good video on how to prune a peach tree. Notice the time of pruning during full flower, don't be timid, prune with gusto.

I'm training ours above predestination height, because of the deer population we have.

Hopefully you can see how much I've pruned to get to this point. All those bumps on the truck used to be limbs now healed over.

And finally my choice of scaffolds. If possible choose the scaffolds with a good strong branch to trunk collar to support the weight of the peach load without breaking off. And perhaps just as important select scaffolds to keep that are spaced far enough apart along the trunk. the ideal scaffold configuration is as close as you can get to a triangle for tree ballance under fruit load.

I believed the two lower scaffold branches will be pruned. But I would like for them to fruit next spring to see what all the contender hoopla is all about.

Do you see my next branch to prune? Yep it's the one on the top pointing straight up. After that I think I'll be done with scaffolding and hopefully this peach will live a long healthy fruitful life. IDK... I did my imperfect best, it's all I can do.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

Just got two never been inside, pre loved, tabby tom kitties, 10 weeks old.

Cute lil critters, mellow too.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[Finnie]

Just got two never been inside, pre loved, tabby tom kitties, 10 weeks old.

Cute lil critters, mellow too.
View attachment 24114

Jesus is Lord and Christ

Get them fixed ASAP so the neighborhood toms don’t kill them or run them off. Which you probably already know.

They are cute.

 

[Finnie]

Another side benefit we had from early neuter on our male cats was that even though they would “spray” on the house, nothing ever came out. Thank goodness!

 

[CrealCritter]

Get them fixed ASAP so the neighborhood toms don’t kill them or run them off. Which you probably already know.

They are cute.

Most baby animals are cute even skunks

 

[Hinotori]

Most baby animals are cute even skunks

Skunks are kind of cute as adults too