My Tiny Plot

The short answer is when you can give it a gentle twist…

just like this…

and it comes away from the tree easily, like this. If it needs to be tugged at then it’s not ready.

My Peach tree is starting to show signs of life. I can just about see some tiny pink flower petals starting to emerge under the deluge of rain we’re having here. It’s time to deploy my Peach frame.

So my exposed little Peach tree became…

…my protected little Peach tree. I don’t want any nasty Peach Leaf Curl setting in or my beautiful flowers giving in to some late frosts, do I?

What we ‘do’ want is a gorgeous Peach-laden tree, that you can smell when you walk by it – like I had last year. My mouth is actually watering!

Well, the short answer is, ‘when it looks like this’. But, okay I’ll give you the long answer then.

I had no idea how to tell if a Peach is ripe until a few days ago when I thought – hmm that Peach looks ripe but I’m too much of a wuss to pick it and see. So I turned to the ‘all-seeing eye’ (the Internet) for some friendly advice. This is what it said.

Your Peach is ripe if…

• 1. It smells like a Peach
• 2. The side facing the sun has gone a nice dark, peach colour (as above)
• 3. The side facing away from the sun is yellow (not green).
• 4. The yellow side is firm but not hard
• 5. The Peach comes away easily with a light twist

Under no circumstances squeeze the Peach – they bruise very easily.
So there you have it. Happy Peach pickings.

ps. It tasted divine – and Dad, no you can’t have any!

Everything (well almost, everything) is green in my garden at the moment. At this time of year all of the fruit is unripe and most of the things that are ready for harvest are either green (Lettuce, Spinach, Kale etc) or the colour is under the ground (Carrots, Radish etc). With the exception of my Lollo Rosso Lettuce and my amazing display of Chive flowers virtually everything else is green. My Strawberries, as you can see above, are still green.

My Blackcurrants are plentiful, but you guessed it, still green.

My Peaches are fluffy and cute but very much still green.

But, my Redcurrants, well, they are mostly green but today I noticed that one of them has a tiny patch of pink on it. Yey! Bring on the summer – full of ripe, fragrant fruit and a garden full of colour.

Today, I did some pollinating. My Peach tree is in full flower, with not a single bee in sight. So I did the only thing I could do in the circumstances and got out my paint-brush for a spot of hand pollination. It was quite relaxing really, dusting the pollen from the stamen to the stigma (the only Biology lesson where I totally listened). Dibbing here and dabbing there – yes very satisfying. Of course the Victorian country gardeners would traditionally have done this with a rabbit’s tail fastened to a long stick. But, hmm rabbit’s tail? Where do you find one of those? And don’t say on the end of a rabbit – come on, whaddya expect, I’m vegetarian!

Of course, no sooner had I finished hand pollinating my Peach tree and cursing the bees for being so tardy, then along comes one, bold as brass and does the job for me in one quick in and out. That put me in place, didn’t it?