Just a pic of some peaches on my little tree. These are "Elberta" peaches. They have white meat. I've only had one really good year where most of the peaches weren't wormy. That was the year I happened to be in the yard with my large can of orange-label 'Off' mosquito repellant while walking around the tree and decided to spray it just for the heck of it. It's a small tree. :wink: It worked!! The peaches were large and wormfree and tasted great! But the next year I couldn't remember when I did that....what stage of development. The other day, my daughter looked up the life cycle of the "peach fly" and now I know when to spray next year. (BTW, I had no ill effects from eating those peaches. )
Elberta Peaches are not white- they are yellow fleshed, that is another cultivar, or has been mislabeled when you bought the tree! White peaches are good (I prefer them over the yellows, but both are good!)I grow both yellows, and whites- had good fruit set this year too!
I would be leary of spraying your fruit with a spray that has DEET in it that stuff can be nasty and some people have very adverse effects from just using the spray for mosquitos.
Liquid Seven works well, and is much less harmful. Bonide makes a fruit tree spray (called fruit tree spray!) that has anti fungal, as well as the same active ingredient in Seven, that works well too. If you are getting worm holes, in your peaches- pick up and discard all fallen fruit. Its part of the cycle of pest insects (especially plum curculos, and oriental fruit tree moths). They lay eggs into the fruit, the fruit falls to the ground, and the larvae hatch, and restart the cycle again- next year. Also this years green growth, is what will have peaches on it next year, so prune carefully!
My peaches wont be ready until late August..... Im in zone 5! My mouth waters seeing them on the tree already! Its amazing how far ahead you guys are!
Elberta Peaches are not white- they are yellow fleshed, that is another cultivar, or has been mislabeled when you bought the tree! White peaches are good (I prefer them over the yellows, but both are good!)I grow both yellows, and whites- had good fruit set this year too!
I would be leary of spraying your fruit with a spray that has DEET in it that stuff can be nasty and some people have very adverse effects from just using the spray for mosquitos.
Liquid Seven works well, and is much less harmful. Bonide makes a fruit tree spray (called fruit tree spray!) that has anti fungal, as well as the same active ingredient in Seven, that works well too. If you are getting worm holes, in your peaches- pick up and discard all fallen fruit. Its part of the cycle of pest insects (especially plum curculos, and oriental fruit tree moths). They lay eggs into the fruit, the fruit falls to the ground, and the larvae hatch, and restart the cycle again- next year. Also this years green growth, is what will have peaches on it next year, so prune carefully!
My peaches wont be ready until late August..... Im in zone 5! My mouth waters seeing them on the tree already! Its amazing how far ahead you guys are!
Thank you for the information. I'll eliminate the "Off" from my peach-treating repertoire.
I actually have been removing fallen fruit and also the obviously wormy ones still on the tree and those bitten into by Bluejays or other birds. I only recently learned about the life cycle you mentioned. I was removing the bad fruit from the tree and the ground to keep the yellow jackets and wasps away. Didn't want to have to deal with them when working around the tree. So now there's one more reason for doing it.
I looked at pictures on the internet of various kinds of Elberta's and some of them are almost white. I may have misstated by saying they were purely white. I was comparing them to 'normal' peaches I've seen in my life that are very yellow. Mine are actually more of a very pale yellow. They have a milder taste than the truly yellow peaches and are not as sweet. I planted it because it was my Grandmother's favorite peach. It's also a very small tree in spite of being about 20 years old.
Good practice with the fruit. It will help with diseases too. Theres so many culitvars these days of peaches- its hard to keep track!
White peaches generally are sweeter than yellows- they have a higher sugar content, and usally lack the slight tartness in yellows. Both are great though- but I still love the white fleshed peaches the most. Maybe you have one that is crossed with both- you never know these days. The 2 white peaches I have growing is Belle Of Geogia, and White Lady, looking forward to eating some!
I saw a segment once on 20/20 about DEET, a few years ago- they showed people who had horrible reactions to Deet,(from using insect repellent sprays like OFF) one guy actually died from it. Its probably some form of hyper sensitivity to it, but scary enough. I personally think the benefits of DEET is a plus -lyme disease, and other blood passed diseases it not the nicest thing to get. I just wouldnt spray something your gonna eat with it, lol.
The thing about using the orange-label 'Off' is that it was way before the peaches were ready to pick. Plus I didn't spray anything directly. I just kinda sorta did a 'cloud' around the little tree. It seems to have worked great that time. And we don't eat peaches with the skin on. We peel 'em. So I figured that since they only superficially made contact with the 'Off' plus the fact that we washed 'em and peeled 'em, there wasn't much chance of the DEET being a problem.
No one in my neck of the woods has a sensitivity to DEET and the peaches are only for personal use. We've all used 'Off' for the mosquito-repelling properties for eons. I would hazard a guess that we all inhale more of it when coating ourselves in it than would ever be ingested from a peeled peach. :wink:
KALAR, NICE PEACHES BUT NOT ELBERTA'S, THEY ARE YELLOW FLESHED HENCE CALLED THE CANNING PEACH. i LIVED IN THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA MANY YEARS AND GREW ELBERTA'S, MANY PLUMS, APRICOTS .DID HAVE ONE WHITE PEACH THAT WAS THE BEST EATING PEACH IN THE WORLD.ALSO I DON'T THINK MOSQUITO SPRAY IS SAFE TO USE ON EDIBLES.FRUIT GROWERS ONLY USE SPRAYS WHEN THE TREE IS BLOOMING NEVER WHEN FRUIT IS SET. NOT ALLOWED.
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