Thursday, August 7, 2025

2025 Peach Harvest

The 2025 peach harvest was successful due to getting ahead of the squirrels. Timeline:

June 19 - 25: Squirrel relocation
The squirrels decided they would start early this year. There were a LOT. During this period Doug relocated 10 squirrels.
 
June 26 - July 31: Spoilage and birds
During this period the lack of an official June drop led to a prolonged period of on-the-ground peaches. A few of the peaches were clearly pecked by birds. Doug piled the fallen peaches around the base of the tree. Our guess is that the smell kept the squirrels from getting too excited about what was behind the fence. 

July 28: New trees contribute
One of the four new trees had a grand total of 4 peaches. But wow they were big and juicy! Maybe we will actually thin the harvest so we get 150 great peaches instead of 500 medium sized ones?

Aug 1 - 7: Harvest
The absence of squirrels allowed us to space out harvesting. Some of the peaches that we picked later grew a bit after we took the first 250 off the tree. On Aug 5 a final squirrel decided to join the relocation plan.

2025 Peach Bowl
Spoilage*  200   Final 
Johnsons      380 
Birds        20 
Squirrels**    0 
* Estimated.
** Each squirrel got to eat 2 rotten apples and peanut butter on their ride to the park

Squirrel 4 of 12. I should have given him some gasoline.




New tree peaches were NICE because the tree focused all efforts on 4 peaches



Julia was the official peach catcher (before we acquired a slick fruit picking pole). Julia caught 100% of the peaches that Doug dropped ... except for one fumble. Her final success percentage was 97%. 

Julia catches peaches with 97% accuracy



Aug 2: two baskets ... one for good peaches, one for cutting up today


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