Friday, August 28, 2009

Now that's a peach!

When we moved into our first house we bought two pear trees and two apple trees and planted them in the back yard. Five years later when we moved out they were just starting to amount to something and give a small quantity of...well, small fruit.

When we moved here we bought a peach tree, two pears, and two apple trees and planted on the south side of our front lawn. Whether the water or the light is better I don't know, but these trees have done quite well. The first two years we didn't let them produce so they could focus on growth. This year we let them produce.

By golly if they aren't producing fruit that would make any grocer happy. Our peaches are starting to ripen, and last night my wife gave me some slices from one as a snack. I immediately made a mess when I bit into one and squirted juice all over the place. I've never had a peach that juicy before.

The skin was taut and rosy, and the flesh was just on the edge of crispness, but soft to the tooth. Each bite was exploding with juice, and the flavor was sweet and mellow--and bolder than any peach I've had from a store.

Yes, I'm bragging. We grew that! The first peach I've ever had that I felt could not be improved on by adding sugar and cream or baking in a pie or cobbler.

I really hope we don't have to move, but if we do, that one peach will have made all the effort of growing those trees worth it.