"Peaches for You, Peaches for Me"

When we moved into our house last summer, we were so excited to see a large peach tree in the front yard! I love fruit of ANY type, and I also love the thought of eating something I just picked out of my yard! We anxiously waited peaches last year to no avail! There must have been a late freeze because we didn't even have buds of fruit. Obviously this year we were hoping for better luck! Rich's grandmother lives 30 miles north of us and her peach tree started putting on fruit and ripening in early June. By the end of June we were picking small, but tasty peaches and eating them left and right out of her yard, but ours still wasn't budding. Well, our tree did put some buds on and much to our DELIGHT, we ended up with a gargantuan amount of peaches! They seriously are the best tasting peaches I've ever had! The peaches themselves are much bigger than what you find in the grocery store. Rich says our is the biggest most fertile tree he's ever seen in this area! The branches were literally dragging the ground with the weight of the fruit! Yay! So, the end of the crop is finally here. It lasted almost a month and we have made peach ice cream, peach preserves and have a total of probably 50 bags of frozen peaches in the garage! I have given away peaches and had people come over to pick them out of our yard! I almost felt guilty because there were so many just falling on the ground and rotting but we honestly couldn't keep up. I know I have pictures of the tree itself somewhere but I can't locate them right now. So, here is a picture of our last "harvest" this afternoon. Aren't they beautiful? Oh, how I wish you could taste them through the monitor...they are divine! So, in June I have mulberries in the alley and in July peaches from the front yard. I think I'm going to attempt a vegetable garden next season...it's just so satisfying to grow your own food, you know?