Now that you know the history of this business (and if you missed that, head over to this blog post to read the full story), let’s dig into the next step of this business. The next step is thinning the peaches.
Thinning is merely just taking some peaches off the tree. Getting rid of some peaches so the ones that stay, have more room to grow. More space around the peach just means more opportunity for the peach to get bigger. The bigger the peach, the better it is. You don’t want to buy dinky little peaches do you? No, you want the best ones you can get…the big juicy ones! 🍑
Check out some of these before and after photos. Look closely to see which peaches I took off.
We do this process when the peaches get to be golf ball size. There are two “fear factors” that we can potentially see each year:
- A late Ohio Frost. If we get a frost in April and it gets below 20 degrees F (when the trees have buds but the flowers are not opened yet), we will potentially lose our peach production that year.
- If the peach flower IS opened up, it can withstand temperatures down to 28 degrees F.
- This stage of production is VITAL (when the flower IS JUST starting to bloom)! 🌸
- A nasty spring storm. In Ohio, it can get pretty rainy and windy. So if we thin the peaches too soon, and then a big wind storm comes, it can knock down the peaches. Hail will also damage the peaches.
- FUN FACT: In 2009, when the FIRST harvest was to happen, we got a hail storm and it knocked down 90% of the fruit. 🧊
With those two “fear factors,” we have to be mindful of the weather and when we thin.
Thinning does take some time, as you are touching every single branch. Let me tell you, it DOES help. If we wouldn’t thin, all of the peaches would be very small.
So here’s to thinning and making big, healthy, juicy peaches. We finished thinning 111 of our trees a few weeks ago (we have a total of 221 trees but only 111 in production.) Stay tuned for the next step of production…harvest! But for now, head over to the Facebook page and give us a like. 👍🏼
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