Pondering the Peach Tree

the peach tree

In this post, I was pondering what to do about my peach tree since we are moving. Dave, from Our Happy Acres Blog, had given me the wise advise that moving a large tree would probably kill it. I contacted David The Good from Florida Survival Gardening about the possibility of grafting (since he is a grafting guru) and he said it could only be done when the tree was dormant. That is not good for me, since our house is currently on the market and we hope to sell it before summer ends and certainly before the tree goes dormant again.

So I kept pondering. What to do? What to do? Was there no way to keep a tree that has been so good to me?  And finally I came up with a couple of solutions. They are amazing to me in their simplicity.

The first thing I decided to do was to save several of the seeds and plant them. I had a few drops I had missed, so the seeds were available. Even though it would have been smarter and easier to just carry the seeds and plant them at the new place, I didn't think that far ahead. I planted them in some good garden soil. Impatiently, I dug up one of them to see what was going on. It had tiny rootlets. So maybe. 

The other thing I decided to do was to take cuttings from the tree and try to root them. My grandmother used to root anything and everything. So it seemed worth a try. I bought rooting compound and set out to try.

rooting peach tree cuttings

rooting peach tree cuttings

adding the rooting compound (I tend to be generous with the compound.)

And the finished project.

In case you have never done any rooting before, I will go through the easy steps. Cut a small piece from your plant of choice, going down to the place it forks from the other branch.

Then remove the outer layer of bark, exposing the cambium wood. I use my fingernail so that I won't go too deep. Remove all the lower leaves, leaving just a few (one or two is enough) at the very top.

Dip it in the rooting compound.

Put it in a prepared pot and keep damp.

Maybe I'll be able to get peaches at the new place now.

Peaches This Year

I don't have time for a long post. I took almost the entire week off from my work preparing for our move to deal with our peaches. This week I have to get back on track with the stuff for the move.

Despite that, I did want to update you on the peaches this year. We harvested 57 pounds! What a great tree!

Peach jam cooling on the counter

Since this will be the last home grown peaches I have for awhile, I wanted to make sure I got as much jam as possible. I ended up with 23 pints. I found a recipe for peach peeling and pit jelly and made that with a gallon of the peelings and pits. That gave me 5 pints of jelly. So I feel pretty happy about the harvest.

Linking with Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Mondays.