A Squirrel with a Sweet Tooth

Peaches ripening on one of our trees (photo by Jeanne)

My dad, God rest his soul, had a lifelong hatred for squirrels. When he was a kid, his family went away on a long trip. They were gone for several weeks, and while they were away, a squirrel found its way into the house.  It made a mess of the pantry and kitchen, then damaged a great deal of their furniture and windowsills trying to escape.  Because of that incident, he always hated squirrels.

I always felt rather sorry for the squirrel in his story. After all, can you imagine falling down the chimney and finding yourself in a strange environment, desperate to escape?  I'd gnaw the windowsills, too.

I'd hear stories of gardeners just raving about squirrels, but I never understood how they can make a gardener crazy mad until now.

We had about 30 peaches on the peach tree by the kitchen. We tasted but two and eagerly watched them ripen. We noticed large green beetles attacking the peaches, but there were still plenty of fruit left for us. Until today.

Ever single peach has been stripped from the tree.

Pits litter the raised bed.


My father in law saw the culprit: the squirrel.

After...nothing left but the evidence, pits! (Photo by Jeanne)

 

This same squirrel raided the bird feeder by the vegetable garden. I stopped filling the feeder in the hopes it would deter him.  He next ate through the chicken wire around the vegetable garden.  My husband found him happily devouring the strawberries. We shooed him out of the garden and closed the hole.  Well, Mr. Squirrel still has his sweet tooth.  He decided to climb the peach tree and eat every single peach.

All I have left are...the pits.

Is it wrong to wish Mr. Squirrel severe gastric distress for his gluttony?

Dad, I really do understand your thing about squirrels now. I really do. 

.

Growing Peaches

Growing peaches has been one of the most rewarding aspects of planting the fruit orchard here at Seven Oaks. The ironic thing is that among the peach trees, the one we originally thought would die is the one producing fruit this year.

Peaches ripening on the tree

When we planted the fruit orchard trees in 2007, they came as bare root sticks called whips (I think) from the Arbor Day Society. This is an Elberta peach tree.  The first year, all of the trees struggled to develop roots, but this poor peach tree never thrived.  After two years it really looked as if it was going to die.  My husband wanted to build another little raised garden bed near the back patio. He came up with the idea of running a PVC pipe from the gutter and leader underground and into the soil under the raised bed.  Rainwater from the roof of the house now runs directly into that garden bed and to the roots of the peach tree. I was really on the fence with that idea. On the one hand, given Virginia's crazy hot summers and droughts, it sounded like a good plan.  On the other hand, I was concerned that the rainwater might rot the roots or over water the peach tree. The poor tree looked as if it wouldn't make it anyway, so we decided to take a chance and complete the project.

Peach tree blossoms at Seven Oaks, April 2012

After just about a year, that struggling peach tree took off! It now tops 11 feet tall.  It is the only tree in the entire yard that has peaches. At last count, there are about 25 peaches on the tree.

It dropped a lot of fruit early in the spring.  I'm still learning about growing peaches, but from what I understand, that is natural. "Thinning" the fruit enables the tree to put more energy into the remaining fruit so that they grow bigger.  I think our tree naturally dropped some extra fruit when it was still small.

Right now the peaches are turning gorgeous shades of orange-red.  They are hard as a rock, so no picking and tasting them yet!  I'm looking forward to the harvest.  Even if they don't taste as good as store bought, they're MINE...grown the way I want them to be grown...not waxed, not sprayed with all sorts of scary stuff, but grown about 20 feet from my kitchen window.

And you can't beat that for freshness.