Just Peachy

Although I’m a stickler for good design, I am not a technical gardener. I am neither a fusser, a tracker, a tidier, nor a rule-follower. I want what I want and am willing to try, see what happens, and roll with the chequered results.

What I want right now is to switch many of my perennials out to edibles and medicinals. Planted firmly in Zone 4b’ish, with a couple of micro-climates, there are – supposedly – limitations to what can be grown here. But I am beginning to believe that it’s more about how something is grown vs. where it is grown (see Bananas, Like Mr. Lovins).

My seasonal potager has been a good success, the apple trees produce copious fruit, the grapes are out of control, and the herbals are having a field day. I’ve added a range of indigenous plants and berry-producing shrubs, along with bird feeders, which attract flocks of birds including wild turkeys. Somebody’s bees are happily ensconced on the nectar-producing perennials and the toad and turtle populations seem content. The yard runs to wild, but it is happy.

Two seasons ago I added a peach tree to the mix, siting it in the sunniest, most-protected corner of the property. The nurseryman, who successfully grew one in his own yard, said that it was self-pollinating and would take two years to produce fruit. I wish I could tell you the cultivar of the Prunus Persica, but the downside of not being a rule-follower/tracker is that I keep no tags.

As late fall approached I contemplated wrapping the peach, along with the sensitive Japanese Maples I had planted around the same time. Didn’t happen. We hunkered down through a particularly long, harsh winter with a fairly consistent snow cover.

The maples suffered some die-back, but the peach continued to grow leaps and bounds throughout our rainy spring. Profuse flowers appeared on one lower limb of the tree, a limb that lay within the protective sphere of the neighbouring hedge. Tiny green fruit replaced the flowers and began to form into recognizable peaches. Soon the weight of the maturing fruit required the installation of a crutch to keep the branch off the ground. I counted 15 unblemished lovelies on that single branch. Almost daily one of us would check on their progress.

Two days ago the fruit began to drop. We cradled it in our hands, enchanted by the robust scent and rosy-orange fuzziness. We sliced up the treasures into bite-sized pieces to share. I felt like Charlie with his precious chocolate bar.

While I know that peach trees have a limited life span, and that there is many a slip twixt the cup and the lips to nurture them even to that, I am excited to have this addition to the garden. I have a plan of attack for the leaf blight caused by the excessive rain, a strategy to prevent borers, and some thoughts around a protective winter structure.

I am grateful for this year’s fruit but, ultimately, what happens has as much – or more – to do with Mother Nature as it does to my gardening prowess. Growing food, like so much in the natural world, remains a miracle.