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Please pick peaches at my house
Aug. 20th, 2017 12:10 pmSo, for those who are from far away, or new to my FB friends list, you may be wondering " WTF with all the peaches ,Tamar ?" Let me explain :
About 4 years ago, after eldest headed off for GT, we realised a few things. Youngest would be heading out in a few years, the house was enormous for just 2 people, and there were a lot of things I wanted to do that I couldnt do in Littleton, like have a garden, more chickens, goats, stuff like that. Since I also realised I was going to have to retire from cooking due to my ankle getting worse and worse, I was also going to be out of a job and career, too.So, we started thinking about selling our big house and moving to a smaller one, in a Right to Farm town. About 3 years ago a college friend of Mark's, Bill Caloccia, passed away after a prolonged illness. Bill had a small house on 2 acres in a Right to Farm town, making it perfect for us. The house needed a lot of work, but had good bones, and we could see it working for us eventually.
Bill had a plan to eventually retire from IT security and be a gentleman farmer, and he started planting an orchard. By the time he got ill he had 60 dwarf fruit trees planted. There are plans hanging in a closet that show he wanted to plant about 30 trees more, but didnt get to it. By the time we actually got the house and moved in the orchard hadn't really been tended for 4 years or so. The dwarf trees are not so dwarf anymore.
In New England last year, especially Massachusetts, no one had a good fruit harvest. 2 Weeks of high temps in January got trees budding and then a hard freeze in early february killed all the buds, and then there was a very bad drought in our area. There was no fruit, anywhere, aside from some apple orchards doing OK, and oddly enough our Asian pears were OK. Frankly, we figured we might end having to cut down most of the orchard, because they were doing nothing, were seriously overgrown, and werent worth saving. Then this year happened. Perfect weather, good rain, and a lot of these trees are producing huge amounts for all that they are overgrown. A few trees have branches breaking off because they have too much fruit. This is great, but is way way too much for anything I can deal with on my own. I have no interest in being a professional farmer, this would require employees to pick, etc... way too much. However, Bill must have put 10s of thousands of dollars into that orchard, it would be a shame to just cut it down. So, I am asking friends to come pick fruit constantly. I am working on trying to hook up with the Boston Gleaners, or people like them, and if I can manage to get them to pick and take all the fruit for the food banks, that would be great. For now, tho, please , come pick peaches (and in a few weeks pears, Asian pears, and apples)
About 4 years ago, after eldest headed off for GT, we realised a few things. Youngest would be heading out in a few years, the house was enormous for just 2 people, and there were a lot of things I wanted to do that I couldnt do in Littleton, like have a garden, more chickens, goats, stuff like that. Since I also realised I was going to have to retire from cooking due to my ankle getting worse and worse, I was also going to be out of a job and career, too.So, we started thinking about selling our big house and moving to a smaller one, in a Right to Farm town. About 3 years ago a college friend of Mark's, Bill Caloccia, passed away after a prolonged illness. Bill had a small house on 2 acres in a Right to Farm town, making it perfect for us. The house needed a lot of work, but had good bones, and we could see it working for us eventually.
Bill had a plan to eventually retire from IT security and be a gentleman farmer, and he started planting an orchard. By the time he got ill he had 60 dwarf fruit trees planted. There are plans hanging in a closet that show he wanted to plant about 30 trees more, but didnt get to it. By the time we actually got the house and moved in the orchard hadn't really been tended for 4 years or so. The dwarf trees are not so dwarf anymore.
In New England last year, especially Massachusetts, no one had a good fruit harvest. 2 Weeks of high temps in January got trees budding and then a hard freeze in early february killed all the buds, and then there was a very bad drought in our area. There was no fruit, anywhere, aside from some apple orchards doing OK, and oddly enough our Asian pears were OK. Frankly, we figured we might end having to cut down most of the orchard, because they were doing nothing, were seriously overgrown, and werent worth saving. Then this year happened. Perfect weather, good rain, and a lot of these trees are producing huge amounts for all that they are overgrown. A few trees have branches breaking off because they have too much fruit. This is great, but is way way too much for anything I can deal with on my own. I have no interest in being a professional farmer, this would require employees to pick, etc... way too much. However, Bill must have put 10s of thousands of dollars into that orchard, it would be a shame to just cut it down. So, I am asking friends to come pick fruit constantly. I am working on trying to hook up with the Boston Gleaners, or people like them, and if I can manage to get them to pick and take all the fruit for the food banks, that would be great. For now, tho, please , come pick peaches (and in a few weeks pears, Asian pears, and apples)
