We’ve got a peach problem.
Iowa’s frigid winters don’t favor peach trees, but we’ve got a tough one in the front yard that’s withstood temps down to 30 below zero. Each May it graces our yard with pink blossoms that transform into smallish, tasty peaches that ripen around Labor Day.
We love peaches. So do deer. That means that every fall we play a waiting game with them.
Peaches look ripe a few weeks before they truly soften and ripen. When they’re hard as stones they don’t taste good. We know it. So do the deer. This starts the tricky part.
When will they be ready to pick? If we don’t harvest them at just the right time the deer will do it for us. They’ll devour every single one the night before we intend to pick. This year we ran a wide circle of wire mesh around our tree, but we know hungry deer will figure out how to foil it.
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- Each spring the fragrant pink blossoms grace our yard.
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- Deer sense when peaches are ready to eat.
As we write this on September 2nd our peaches are still hard. The deer are watching and waiting. We know because we found fresh scat just outside the wire fencing last night. We’ll let our readers know who gets the harvest.
Adding extra fencing and stakes may keep the deer back.
Good luck!
Well, my thinking is the deer smell when they are ripe enough to enjoy. That means we humans don’t necessarily have that gift in such intensity. I know that bear have a great sniffer which is about 10 times greater than a dog’s nose. This according to the wild life ranger who helped us understand about bears who have repeatedly tore up our homemade picket fence getting to the bird feeders. Let me know how the extra fencing works. If it isn’t at least six feet high or more, the deer will jump it. Maybe they won’t since it is such a tight space. Good luck! The orchardist here has at least an eight foot fence around acres and acres of peaches, pears and apples.