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[Jim F <bonfire58_2000@yahoo.com>]

     Several Folks are asking me about my hardy peach so, here goes:  When the Soviet Union opened up, an acquaintance of mine went over there to see what he could find.  Some of what he returned with was peach seed which he said came from somewhere in the Kamchatka pennisula - I don't remember the name of the locality.  I was able to obtain a handful of the seed and I have no idea what happened to the rest of it, or the fellow I got it from.

     I planted the seed and two trees grew.  As genetics would have it, one was a short-lived nothing and the other was the answer to one of my dreams - to be able to grow peaches in Northern Minnesota.  The fruit was somewhat smaller than grocery store peaches, white flesh, a clingstone that ripened in Mid-August.  But what did I know about growing peaches?  I tended it like I do my apple trees; I water them during a drought and mostly ignore them otherwise.  Anyway, I was to later learn that my tree probably(?) caught its demise from too big of a crop with too little water.

     I've been planting its generations ever since, trying to reproduce the original.  All of the progeny, so far, have had the same great flavored fruit but somewhat smaller in size and ripening in Mid-September.  Unfortunately for me, the fruit wants to ripen a few days after this area's average first frost.  So far, I've been able to hasten its ripening by drowning the trees with 0-10-10.  Fruit picked green doesn't ripen.  I keep planting seed every year in hopes that the, apparently recessive trait, August ripening, will show up again.

     As with other peaches, they are self-fertile.  The flowers produce no nectar so the only pollenating vectors I see on them have been Osmia spp.  They bloom in April, just after the plums or, in some years, coinciding with the plum bloom.  The flowers seem to be hardier than those of plum because, in some years, I've gotten a peach crop but no plum crop.  I have learned that I can delay bloom, by a few weeks, by spraying with dormant oil when I see the first green of opening buds.

     I have been refering to my peach as "Siberian" to save explanations, since many folks have never heard of Kamchatka.  Then, unfortunately, there is a rootstock with a very similar name that my trees get confused with so I think that, henceforth, I shall refer to it as the "Pequot Peach."  Oh, and by the way, I have tried growing every of the "hardiest" peaches and they have all winterkilled.  Of the seedlings that I sell, I always wait until they have experienced at least two winters because between 2% and 5% don't make it through their first winter here. 

     Did I miss anything that I should have said about it?

 

Jim Fruth

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