Published: July 03, 2009 02:21 pm      

Tough year for peach farmers

Chelsea L. McGowan

cmcgowan@weatherforddemocrat.com

Summer storms have been the cause of much damage in Parker County over the past several weeks, and at least one local farmer said those storms are to blame for a destroyed peach crop.

When asked how this year’s crop would be leading up to the annual Parker County Peach Festival, Ben Walker of B&G’s Garden said simply, “there isn’t one.”

“I got hailed out on June 6,” he said. “We’re picking up a few seconds, but not many. No one else that I know of has had a good year, and there are no peaches up in Montague county either. I don’t know where the peaches for the festival are going to come from.”

Peaches are a delicate fruit, and must be fully ripe before they can be picked. They will only last for a few days once off the tree, and the harvest cycle can be quite unpredictable.

Walker, who’s farm is in Poolville, said he was set to have a fairly average crop this year before the early June storm.

“I had survived a few slight freezes... little ones that hit a few hours before dawn,” he said. “I was going to have about a 60-80 percent crop. Some trees were loaded with really nice peaches, and others were scarcer. Overall, we were looking pretty good. But in that huge storm, I lost two of my trees completely and broke a lot of limbs.”

The storm destroyed more than just Walker’s peach crop, as he reported losing all of this year’s tomatoes and plums, as well as most of his blackberries.

While Walker and his family are hoping for better luck next year, he said it’s been a lesson learned.

“I’m looking into getting insurance on several of these crops from next season,” he said. “I got hailed out a number of years back, too, so it’s time we looked into a way to financially protect our crop.”