We've been gifted several fruit trees over the years here at Struan Farm: June's nectarine from Dargaville, Mrs. Prescott's peaches from Ruawai, and Karen Jones' Piopio peaches.
June's tree is away, it gave us (and the birds) a huge amount of nectarines this past season. Mrs. Prescott's seedling peach trees got planted out from pots this past winter, and are settling into the orchard after a few nibbles by rabbits.
Sister-in-law Anna's good friend Karen gifted us two seedling peach trees for the new fruit orchard many years ago now. I'm thinking it may be seven years? They've had a much bumpier road to hoe here at Struan Farm. The poor trees were planted out in the paddock near our driveway and were never fenced properly (by he-who-shall-not-be-named/blamed). They were decimated regularly by both rabbits and lambs/sheep as a result. More than once I thought they should be dug out and sent to fruit tree heaven. When I finally issued an ultimatum on that score they got improved fencing. So the good news is that now both have recovered and are starting to grow into viable trees. I gave them a prune last season to try to help, along with a good dump of sheep pellets in spring and copper sprays in autumn and spring. (It's very wet here, so we need to do the latter on young trees to avoid or at least reduce leaf curl.)
We've been rewarded for our patience and protection of the Piopio peaches. This year the larger of the two trees delivered us with its first fruit, and it is AMAZING. I'm not exaggerating when I say these are delicious peaches.
It's obvious they're telling me they like to be looked after, these poor little peach trees. I will heed the call.
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