"Are those peaches real?" asked a Nebraska visitor
to the Showcase of
Southern Agriculture in Centennial Olympic Park.
"Absolutely," answered Butch Ferree, a peach
specialist with the University
of Georgia Extension Service.
"People are so surprised at the size of the peaches
because most think the entire
crop was wiped out by the cold weather we had in March,"
Ferree said.
More than 10,000 visitors a day passed through the exhibit.
They saw not only peaches
but other Georgia crops: Vidalia onions, peanuts, pecans,
apples, tobacco, forestry and
ornamentals.
But it was a basket of peaches under the peach trees that
kept them asking, "Can I
have one of those?"
"The peach season for this year is just about
over," Ferree said. "We’ll
have peaches at some farm markets probably for the next month. I
feel like a high estimate
was about 3 or 4 percent of the crop was saved. We were
decimated."
But what Olympic Park visitors see are premier peaches —
crop or no crop.
"We had several varieties on display in the Park,"
Ferree said. "We had
Redglobe, Summergold, Dixieland and Flameprince" (no
relation to the Olympic flame).
Having trees in Centennial Olympic Park was no easy feat.
Ferree had pampered them
since January for their chance to show the world what a Georgia
peach tree looks and feels
like.
"We dug these trees out of an orchard with a tree spade
in January," Ferree
said. "We mixed orchard soil with pine bark 50-50 to fill
in around the root
ball."
The trees were then planted in 3-feet-by-3-feet-by-18-inch
plywood containers. They
were transplanted to the park in the container and placed in a
raised bed of peanut-shell
mulch.
"It took some help from above, a few bumps along the
road, some close scrutiny and
a lot of lucky guesses to get them here," Ferree said.
"They look pretty
decent."
Could a homeowner use this method for growing a peach tree?
"Absolutely not," Ferree said. "Peaches are
super-sensitive to
overwatering. That has been our greatest challenge in growing
these in containers. It
wouldn’t work for most homeowners."
