Springtime in the Orchard

Blooming leaf buds on our peach trees are a wonderful site to behold! We are now in a fast growing season. The winter brought sufficient chill hours and light and soil temperatures coordinated for a nice bloom and leaf break.

Now we have to get to work making sure the trees are getting what they need to produce our delicious, hill country Eckhardt peaches! This is an outline of what we're doing in the orchard. If you've got trees of your own, follow these steps to maximize your harvest too.

• Make sure your fertilizer is down and either tilled in or watered in. Remember, put granular fertilizer in a thin sprinkle along the drip line of the tree branches. On young trees, stay at least 3 feet away from trunk to avoid burning any tender, feeder roots.

• It’s not too late to prune out. Remove dead limbs and preform corrective pruning of suckers from below the graft sight that have sprouted from the ground.

• The most important item on your checklist at this time is to keep the area around your trees clean from weeds. You want every drop of moisture to go to your trees and not to go to unwanted grass or weeds. Donald’s favorite reminder to his daughters in the orchard,

“It is not the rain or moisture you receive, but the moisture that you save is what will grow big peaches.”

• Another great reminder from Donald is to remember that your tree has fine, white, tender, feeder roots that are more shallow than the larger roots.  These roots are very active now through the growing season. So when you disc harrow, till, or chop weeds around trees, stay more shallow than usual to avoid disturbing those precious feeder roots.