(for the record, Jersey has some of the best peaches in the country)
We had a warm spell for a couple of weeks in April, which caused all the peach, cherry, and even apple trees to flower. Then we had a massive freeze, which killed all the blooms. This orchard is about ten miles from me and at which I’ve gone peach picking. Another large orchard only four miles from me is in the same situation. We have a small peach tree on our property, and it has maybe 15-20 small fruit, which means we’ll likely get a couple peaches, at best. Almost nothing on our old plum tree.
https://www.nj.com/monmouth/2026/05/no-peaches-apples-or-cherries-late-freeze-devastates-popular-nj-pick-your-own-farm.html
I hate that for the farmers and backyard growers. We had something similar happen. We had a peach tree loaded with blooms and small peaches and then it froze. I covered it with a frost cloth and put some lights in the tree but it didn’t help much. I think that 8 survived, and a racoon got half of those.
However, we had another peach tree that bloomed after the freeze and it is absolutely loaded. I had to prop up the limbs because they were sagging so much. We just had two with dinner.
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We’ve started getting South Carolina peaches at the fruit stand the last couple weeks and they’ve been delicious.
The white stuff is a large zippered insect netting that covers the whole tree. So far, we haven’t lost any peaches to critters that I know of
Not only that, the weird blizzard/ice storm snapped a lot of trees; our plum tree lost about a quarter of its main branches smaller than 4" thick
Ironically - or maybe it’s just nature’s way? - where we had to cut back the tree allowed more sunshine to our rose bushes, so they’re thriving right now
Our blueberry bushes in the back yard look a little thin, too, but our raspberries (in the front, with the roses) are fine
We’re not too far north of you and the same thing happened to the orchards up here. Our local one is about 5 min away and they were making posts to all local residents apologizing because they had helicopter pilots going all night for a few nights to try and keep the warmer air down by the crops. They set out orchard heaters as well and I know it helped a bit but the last thing I read said they still lost a significant percentage of their crop. Its a shame.
My go-to produce store had SC peaches yesterday. I think they were $3.99/lb.
