Thanks Jim, My intentions are that my son and I will plant the trees. I plan to rent a dingo with a large auger. These are small peach trees, so they won't need much of a hole, but I don't want to try it by hand. I've thought of doing some soil testing. The biggest issue with our soil and climate around here is getting peach trees up out of the ground (i.e. terraced). If that's done peaches grow like weeds, if it's not done, they die. I did a couple soil tests on the soil here and it was very low in P. However, the farm property has been used for cattle pasture for years, and so should have plenty of P (probably too much). Zinc was also low here, but I typically spray Ziram for early scab control which also provides zinc through foliar absorption (peach trees are heavy feeders of zinc). My general problem is that peach trees have been too vigorous here, so I wouldn't mind if the soil was a little less fertile at the farm (but it probably won't be). The soil profile looks very similar on both sites (20" of top soil followed by clay for as far as you want to dig). I plan to mulch the trees out there with wood chips and run a dry orchard, as I do here. "are you doing this on your own or are you getting technical assistance from a university or crop specialist?" I'm not quite doing it on my own. I've been touring orchards in the area for many years (partly with the Kansas Fruit Growers Assoc.) so compared to other orchards I don't think there are many surprises. There is a good fruit specialist in Missouri I've met and may see if I can get him to come out. My wife and I looked for land for a while and no site is perfect. This ones not either. The biggest issue is air drainage. The part of the land I intend to plant does flatten out in a low spot, but the low spot extends for over a mile, so I'm hoping the flat area is large enough to accommodate cold air drainage. Part of the property is on a southward facing slope, but I don't intend to plant on that (at least not right away). I wish the property didn't have the air drainage concern but trying to find a property easily accessible to the public, zoned rural, doesn't flood, at a reasonable price is pretty difficult. My biggest question was row spacing, since I don't have any experience running large equipment down rows. I emailed a few commercial peach growers and basically got back similar answers. Namely, it's personal preference. Jerry Frecon (fruit specialist from Rutgers) sent back the most humorous response - "I could take you to orchards with 16' row spacing and when they are heavily laden with fruit you can hardly walk down the rows. I see the growers drive his equipment through these blocks and break limbs, knock off and bruise fruit but he does not worry about it because he says he is picking up to 1200 bushels per acre at this close spacing and high vigor." I've pretty much settled on 25'rows which is a bit more space than growers around here allow. I plan to allow 30' at the ends to turn equipment. There is a very good resource here, http://www.clemson.edu/extension/peach/commercial/index.html called the "Southeastern Peach Growers Handbook". It is obviously written for peach growers in the Southeast, but the Midwest doesn't have anything nearly that extensive, and a lot of the information crosses over.

Thank you for your help and interest. How do I find out the zone? I live at present in Ireland, same weather as UK England but up in the Wicklow hills just South of Dublin; so it is a bit cooler. If we have any snow a little usually falls in March but only a few inches and goes within a week. I have them on the bathroom floor at present on newspapers and thought since the house is pretty warm I might put one in a big pot then outside for the summer. I plan to fly the other two smaller ones, which will fit into a suitcase, to Southern Portugal where I have a house, it is much warmer there and can get very hot but not humid. We never have any frost where I am there. Two have two small pups about the size of a very small orange.The third has been cut with a good hunk out of the parent. One pup is showing a 1" green spike in the 10 days we have been back from the Bahamas where I was given them. They were very mushy and hot after the long journey back here but have dried out since and I can see a small green center to all of them(but a bit black at the tip)where they have been cut off Should I cut this very small(half inch black off)? The stems are quite solid. One more question you may be able to answer,since I have been reading a lot of the forums is:- As the bananas are growing, it seems they have purple pendulous type flower hanging at the bottom of the hand. Am I correct in thinking this is the male flower and should it be cut off and at what stage, if at all. I also read that you can eat that. Wendy

I'm just finishing the batch that I grew two summers ago (habaneros and cayenne). I had them in the freezer all this time and they're fine. Don't expect the crunch of a fresh one, but I've been using them in salsas and sauces and my family is still around exclaiming how hot they still are. They're definitely a good storage commodity. Love em. Be well, Elliot

The deer eat me out of house and home during this time of year. Why wouldn't they? The snow is several feet deep with a hard icy crust on top, and it's still well below freezing all the time. They have already eaten all the berries they can reach from the crabapples, they've already cleaned all the sunflower heads from the fields. Here is food, easy to get to (as long as the dogs are in the house), and tasty. We put out sunflower seeds and corn for the deer, the resident herd (about a dozen deer) can eat it in ten minutes. We feed the birds, the birds and deer empty 10 feeders in two days. To me, it's part of life in the country. I love watching both birds and deer and I take a deep breath and go buy more food. The newspaper recently had an article that February and March are the most critical times for the deer - they are running out of accessible food. If eating my bird food helps even a few of them get through the winter, good for them! There are those who say we should not feed the deer - it spreads disease, and there are too many deer anyway. The disease issue seems to be significant only where large numbers are feeding in a very small area. As for numbers, the hunters do their best to take care of that problem in the fall. As for eating my garden plants in summer - for the most part they stay out of the yard in summer - there's food in the fields and there's dogs in the yard. But, they do eat some of my flowering plants. Again, that's life in the country. I learn what they like less and plant more of that. Or I spray my roses with a repellent. So, another vote for feed the deer. And enjoy them. Look at this lady's beautiful eyes, how could you resist?