Peaches hit by freeze

Awwwww Darn ! That hard freeze we had for 2 nights in a row got my peaches I think.

I have 2 trees that were just 2 yrs. old and this was to be their first year for fruit...... and they were both just loaded ! The tiny peaches were about the size of large peas. My little trees bloomed beautifully a couple weeks ago and I was so excited to see all the tiny little peaches forming. Even though I wouldn't have let them all stay on, since the trees are so young, I might have let it produce a couple, just to see what they might be like.

I did cover both of them with big black contractor trash bags, but I'm not sure it helped much. The leaves are all wilty and droopy like they froze anyway. It got down to 27 one night and then down to 23 the next night. Pretty hard on the trees.

I covered a lot of my flowers and they made it. But not so sure about the fruit.

Anyone else lose fruit in that untimely freeze ?

The NAFEX list is full of stories of woe. With the unseasonable frosts we had in CA this year and now these frosts Back East, I anticipate produce prices will go sky high. My young citrus trees took a hit in our freak frost, but luckily none of my deciduous stuff had leafed out yet. If anything, the frost probably helped the trees that are on the edge of the chill hours we get. I definitely have to educated myself on how to deal with frost. I'm expecting weather patterns to get freakier as global warming gets worse.

I can't tell yet if my peaches are goners. The news on TV said the folks in the peach orchards near here say it will take a few days of warm weather before they can tell. My plums turned brown and dropped off but the peaches still *look* okay.

There was a segment on the local news last night here in SC (lots of peaches here:). They said that the new peaches should be hard and green all through. If they are soft and brown, they're history.

Mine were so small they were still in the flower husk but they are not soft and brown. They are still green but I think I'll have to wait to see if they keep growing or fall off.

So sorry for you all that lost fruit. I mentioned this in another thread, but there are frost blankets made just for trees you can get at Peaceful Valley. I'm getting a few for the baby trees I plan to plant in the winter.

Agree with Zeppy. Frost blankets and fleece row cover materials have better thermal insulation than the plastic bags. Plus they breathe and let light in as well, so the plants can do some photosynthesizing while they are tucked in.

One thing you should realize about covering is when the tree gets to be full-sized you need a whole lot of material. I have a 80'x6' sheet of 50% rowcover (from Peaceful Valley in fact) and I started to cover my peach row but I realized how little I could do with only 80' and packed it up again. I have quite a few trees and the 80' I had would probably have completely covered one full-sized tree. The problem is the way surface area gets so large: a 10'-diameter sphere for example (an idealized full-size tree shape) has a surface area of 314 square feet which would need more than 50' of 6' wide rowcover to cover.

I think I will at least cover something next time, just so I get a peach or two as opposed to nothing. This time I got lucky, it didn't quite get cold enough to kill the blossoms.

Scott