Page 31 - Leisure Living Magazine July 2018

Growing Fruit Is A Partnership
By Brad Schwan, Schwan Orchards, Catawba Island
With the amount of work put into an annual crop it wouldn’t be surprising for a farmer to think the end product was “the fruit of his labor”. In fact nature takes care of the majority of the work and we only partner in order to improve what is being provided.
Using peaches as an example, the farmer starts the year by pruning every tree. Pruning keeps a tree healthy by increasing the leaf-to-limb ratio as well as strengthening the remaining branches. This first task takes place early in the year, often while snow still covers the ground.
Spraying soon follows. Early diseases like peach-leaf curl, left unchecked, could weaken or kill entire orchards. Insects and fungus attack the trees from spring through the entire summer. The early Catawba Island peach industry was once devastated by something called San Jose scale. With a few simple sprays today we can help nature preserve the trees.
In mid spring nature decides whether we will have any crop at all. While the trees are in blossom, it is not uncommon to have a frost which kills the year’s crop. Should we survive a killing frost, the next chore for we “assistants” is to thin the peach- es. This is one of the steps that homeowners with a tree or two often skip because it seems counter- intuitive to remove seventy to eighty percent of the young peaches. A peach tree (and many other fruit trees) will put on far more fruit than it can possibly bear. Without a little help the unthinned tree will produce golf ball size fruit. In addition, the burden of holding an enormous crop without thinning can cause a tree to bust into pieces. The process of selecting and twisting off unwanted fruit is a very time-consuming process. In our or- chard it means a full week of effort.
Spraying continues through the summer but for the most part nature now takes control of see- ing the crop come to fruition. This final step of maturing the fruit is the most important in deter- mining how good the end product becomes. This is also probably the part that is least understood by the consumer.
One of the most often asked questions at our stand each summer is, “which of your many vari-
eties of peaches do you think is the best?” In the first year or two of our farming we thought one va- riety was the very best. Then a strange thing hap- pened. The next year a different variety was better. It wasn’t until this change in flavor had happened three or four times that we realized it is not only the variety that determines the quality of a peach. In fact weather is even more important. In the final week or two before a peach is fully mature, water plays havoc on the final taste. During those final days, if a peach tree is exposed to wet condi- tions the peaches swell with extra moisture. The fruit will not only enlarge dramatically but more importantly the sugars and flavors will become wa- tered down. This was never more obvious than last summer. The early peach varieties were exposed to very rainy periods just before harvest. We felt so strongly that the peaches were subpar that we post- ed a note warning customers of this fact. Even the king of local peaches, Redhaven, was adversely af- fected. To our relief most of our customers still felt the peaches were great. The later varieties, which came through drier days, improved nicely. You might note that this process is common in other fruit as well. Have you ever bit into a huge straw- berry only to find little taste (at least compared to a smaller one)? To further complicate things, tem- perature is also involved. Peaches “size up” at night, below 65 degrees. If we have hot nights, above this key temperature, the fruit will not absorb as much moisture and therefore even during wet conditions will maintain its sweetness and intense flavors.
You and I must always remember that no mat- ter how much we put into growing some favorite fruit or vegetable, we are only as good as our nature partner.
We hope to see you this summer at our stand or at our Peach and Wine Festival. The Festival, to benefit the Humane Society of Ottawa County, will be held On August 4 from 11AM to 8PM at Schwan Orchards, 1797 N.W. Catawba Rd., Port Clinton, Ohio. There will be live music, food and games. Consider entering the baking or wine-mak- ing competitions. Parking and entrance are free. Check Schwan Orchards on Facebook or catawba- peachfest.com for further details.
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