I have a peach tree in my backyard and boy do I love it! So much so, that I’ll be using the ripe juicy peaches and other fresh summer fruits in every recipe for the rest of the week. I really have no choice. The season is fast and furious and it’s a “use it or lose it” situation.

The peach tree I have now is a sweet little dwarf tree.

But back when we bought the house in 1999, I planted a full-size peach tree, and was that ever a mistake!

By May 2003, the tree got so big and produced so much fruit that I could not keep up.

The previous three photos were taken at a “Peach Pickin’ Dinner” where I begged my friends to come over and help me pick and eat peaches. We picked enough peaches to cover the entire kitchen island, and those were just the ones that were ripe that night!

By 2005, the tree could not keep up either.

It produced so many peaches that the limbs broke under the weight of the fruit.

A couple of years later, we remodeled the entire backyard, so the damaged and the sad big peach tree was out and the dwarf peach was in.

The dwarf is in the same place and it must be the perfect local for such a tree because it produces like crazy too.

Thankfully, not a kitchen island full of peaches, but a cutting board full every few days of the short season. Much more manageable!

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