Citrus and Peach trees

[PeakOiler]

Keep us posted, Shaved Monkey. I'm always interested on how others' efforts are coming along.

Today I harvested the last two pink grapefruit of the season (the third and fourth in 2012). They weighed in at 496 g (1.09 lb) and 486 g (1.07 lb) respectfully. I guess the "I'm not quite dead, I'm getting better" grapefruit tree has recovered. It produced four fruit this last season.

[PeakOiler]

Well, well, well. Today I spotted two blossom buds on my "I'm not quite dead, I'm getting better" lime tree that has been over-wintered in the house. It was severely hurt by freezing temperatures in Feb. 2011.

That made my day!

[PeakOiler]

Three of 13 peach trees are beginning to blossom. The other 10 have buds all over them (and hopefully some late bloomers) since freezing temps have occurred here through the end of March. It may be a very good year for the peaches. We'll see.

We have been getting some decent winter rains, and the US Drought Monitor map next week should show some improvement for this county.

According to KBMQ (Burnet County airport) data, there have been only five nights when the temperature dipped below freezing this year. My citrus trees love that.

[PeakOiler]

Most of the 13 peach trees have blossomed. It's getting very pink around here and the bees are buzzing around!

Meanwhile, the lime tree's few flowers have opened. That's a good sign. The poor little tree was severely damaged by last year's record-setting freezing temperatures. It's still in recovery mode.
The three lemon trees are all in blossom, and one tree has already set some small fruit.
The tangelo is blossoming. The two young orange trees are putting out a lot of growth too.
I put one of the grapefruit trees back outside on the deck. It's putting out some new leaves.
All four satsuma tangerine trees are putting out new leaves.

Reminder to readers: All but one of the young citrus trees are still in big pots.

Checking my Garden Logbook 2012 summary, the young trees have produced over 318 citrus fruits since I first purchased a lemon tree in 2005 and subsequently buying/receiving the other citrus trees. I didn't count or weigh any of the lemons harvested in 2005 or 2006.

There are no freezing temperatures forecast for the next 10 days! Doesn't mean, however, that we could still see a late freeze...

We'll see.

[PeakOiler]

It's getting more pink around here each day:



When all the peach trees are in full blossom, I may post a picture of all 13 trees.

Still no freezing temperatures forecast for the next 10 days. Scattered T-storms are forecast for tomorrow.

So the weather is looking favorable for a good peach harvest, although I don't want to "count my chickens before the eggs hatch." We definitely could use some more rain. I let out some of the collected rainwater on every tree yesterday.

Shaved Monkey: How did your peach trees do this year down where you're at?

[PeakOiler]

Well, I didn't get all 13 peach trees in the picture, just ten of them:



Meanwhile, I connected the stand-alone 1,550 gallon rainwater tank to the tree irrigation manifold and have kept the soil pretty moist so far while the trees have been blossoming.

This pic shows part of the front yard:



A few of the citrus are already on the deck enjoying the blue skies.

The solar water distiller's receiver can be seen in the lower left corner.

It's almost time to mow and trim the grass/weeds! At least it's a little greener around here than last year at this time.

Part of the future plans for June/July will include selling peaches this year (if there's a good harvest) at the local farmers market in Burnet.

[Loki]

Nice pics PeakOiler! That peach orchard looks great. Do you get peach leaf curl there?

I’m considering putting a Meyer lemon tree or two in a 20-gal pot---I can overwinter them in an unheated greenhouse if need be. Meyers are supposedly hardy down to 18 F. May also try an containerized Arbequina olive or two, they’re also supposed to be pretty hardy.

[PeakOiler]

Nice pics PeakOiler! That peach orchard looks great. Do you get peach leaf curl there?

I’m considering putting a Meyer lemon tree or two in a 20-gal pot---I can overwinter them in an unheated greenhouse if need be. Meyers are supposedly hardy down to 18 F. May also try an containerized Arbequina olive or two, they’re also supposed to be pretty hardy.

Thanks Loki.
No, the peach trees have never gotten leaf curl. The main threat to the peach trees is weather, either not enough rain or late freezes. I have never sprayed the peach trees with anything. No pesticides, etc.

I'm hoping this year might break my record harvest of almost 500 pounds (224 kg) of peaches set in 2010.

[Loki]

Guess it makes sense you don't get peach leaf curl, I believe we're prone to it because of our spring rain. 500 lbs of peaches is impressive, what do you do with them? I canned peaches for the first time last year (only ~20#), they were absolutely delicious. I'm probably going to do 3 times as many this year.

[PeakOiler]

Guess it makes sense you don't get peach leaf curl, I believe we're prone to it because of our spring rain. 500 lbs of peaches is impressive, what do you do with them? I canned peaches for the first time last year (only ~20#), they were absolutely delicious. I'm probably going to do 3 times as many this year.

A review of this thread explains what I've done with the peaches in the past, but to summarize, I ate as many as I could stand, gave a lot away to family, friends, and coworkers, and made peach jam and peach wine.

Since 2010 and that big harvest, and after being diagnosed with type II diabetes, I can't eat them. Well, perhaps just one a day, but not like five or six a day like I used to.

So that's why my plans have changed to sell them instead. Besides, I'm still a little more than $112 in the hole from my tree investments:

[PeakOiler]

Update: I'm happy to report that all 13 peach trees are in some sort of state of blooming now. I think this is the first season ever that all 13 blossomed in the same year.

As I type this, it's raining again. Two of the rainwater tanks are overflowing a little. I'm switching valves on the tanks to start using water from the full tanks. This area of Central Texas has been getting some decent winter rains. I recently learned about this web page:

http://hydromet.lcra.org/full.aspx

Here is a snapshot of the web page:



I didn't wait long enough for all the rain gauge data to load before capturing the image. Each flag shows the rainfall amounts in the last 48 hrs.

I've measured over half an inch in the last 24 hrs, and as I mentioned, more is falling as I type this. The Highland Lakes levels are rising!

My peach trees are happy!

[PeakOiler]

Well, the peach trees blossom petals are now falling off, a lot of baby peaches are forming (and I mean a LOT!) and rain is in the forecast; 30% chance today, 50% chance tonight, 50% chance tomorrow, and a 90% chance tomorrow night!



Granted, the trees will drop a lot of the newly formed fruit by themselves, wind (and possibly hail) will knock some off, and birds may also get to some of them.

But in the meantime, I'm letting out more collected rainwater onto the peach trees via the (mostly) buried 3/4" PVC irrigation manifold. (Gravity fed irrigation.)

[PeakOiler]

Just wanted to add that I've begun taking the potted citrus trees out of the greenhouse and bringing them back onto the front deck. (You can see the black ramps leading onto the deck in the picture above.)

Most of the citrus are blossoming, including the mineola tangelo and the two orange trees. The recovering lime tree is still blossoming and putting out new branches and leaves.

The satsuma tangerine tree that's in the ground is also blossoming this year. That's encouraging to me since it indicates that I can transplant more of the citrus trees into the ground in this climate.

[PeakOiler]

Today I finished moving the potted citrus onto the front deck and finished connecting some temporary (dry-fitted) 3/4" pipe to water each tree using gravity flow only while the water levels in the rainwater collection tanks are above the height of the potted plants. Opening two of the outdoor spigot valves from the rainwater tanks is a lot less labor intensive than carrying buckets of water up onto the deck to water each plant.



I moved the pineapple plants back outside too. A small pineapple is forming on one of the plants.

The peach trees are doing very well. It's almost time to break out the bird netting.

[PeakOiler]

Hundreds of immature peaches are still forming on the 13 peach trees. So far so good. The wind is knocking some of them off, but that's just Nature taking her share. I just hope she doesn't take all of them! We need more rain. We're still in moderate drought conditions. The Highland Lakes are still extremely low. The drought is well over a year old now, going on two...

We have received only 0.02" of rain since March 20th according to KBMQ/WeatherUnderground. I've been letting out collected winter rainwater (>3,100 gallons were reserved for the peach trees and used over the last month or so) and I'm hoping we get some Spring rains soon this year for a recharge over the next few weeks. We'll see.

Most of the citrus have immature fruit on them, especially the lemons. The minneola tangelo is going crazy! That little tree has about a dozen fruit on it! I don't expect all of them to reach maturity. The navel orange has a lot of immature fruit on it too.

So far I've used about 2.5 kW-hr this season for the peach trees, and that was for pumping about 3,000 gallons of rainwater from the downhill tanks to the tanks nearer the peach trees. That amount of electricity corresponds to the caloric energy of about 11.5 pounds of peaches.

[PeakOiler]

My peach harvest has begun. So far I've picked 21 peaches, a total of 1.972 kg (4.34 lb), average weight of 94 g/peach. I've eaten three. Yum!

I haven't used any pesticides once again and I've used only rainfall and collected rainwater for the trees. Only a few were pecked by birds, but those "bad parts" can easily be sliced away. I'm also weighing the processed amount, i.e., without the pit (in other words, the edible amount). I am making sure I don't eat too much at any one time in light of my Type II diabetes. One peach per day is OK.

I'll be harvesting peaches over the next few weeks or more.

[PeakOiler]

Deleted-double post.

[PeakOiler]

I've harvested about 6.838 kg (15 lbs) of peaches in five days. That's just from 2 of 13 trees!

I'll be freezing some of the processed peaches for the next batch of peach wine in my solar-powered freezer!

I checked the local grocery (HEB-Georgetown) prices for Texas peaches today and they want $1.98/lb. So I have over $30 peaches so far. There are dozens more that are still too green.

I've now paid back my electrical use (for pumping some collected rainwater) by producing more caloric energy from the peaches than the energy from the grid, or any fossil fuels, to produce those peaches...


Flow systems do work, once the infrastructure is in place...

[PrestonSturges]

We watched a big rabbit eating one of our peaches and a little baby rabbit would come and sniff it, and the big rabbit would give it a little bop on the head to shoo it away. This happened about three times in a couple minutes.

[PeakOiler]

The wild rabbits around here have been feasting on the fallen peaches and any damaged peaches I've been leaving on the ground while harvesting. They're getting fat!

YTD: 129 peaches harvested. Still a lot more...

I'm going to take some of them to work today and pass them around. I know of at least two coworkers who are willing to pay for them.