A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Peach tree question

Hi everyone. I planted a peach tree last spring and it didn;t have any fruit. i was surprised at how fast it grew (2-3 feet last year) but it still seems to small to support fruit. Here the thing. this year i have about 50-60 cherry tomato size baby peaches on it. to encourage it to grow should i take off all the baby peaches? should i leave a few? i have never grown a noncitrus fruit tree before and let me tell you citrus trees are like weeds... impossible to kill em... at least in my climate I would appreciate any input. thanks so much!

Happy gardening

Peaches will only bear on new wood that grew the previous year! I would leave the peaches on it if it were me. Wait until they get a little bigger, if it looks like it will be crowded you may want to thin some of them off-the remaing peaches will be bigger. They may fall on there own in June (June Drop) if the tree is unable to support fruit, or if they get infected with bugs/larvae. Make sure you follow a spray program to keep the bugs off the them. Oriental fruit moths can burrow into the fruit, if you dont spray- this usally will cause June Drop.

thanks for the info. i did think them out abit as the brances are half the diameter of a pencil and with only cherry tomato size fruit the branches were already starting to bend. i pulled off 1/2 and realized i had closer to 100 baby peaches- not too bad considering i planted it last year and it was only a three foot twig when i plnated it. i sprayed the same stuff on the tree as i do on my roses- its on all in one fungus/bug spray from the plant store

Happy gardening

I used to wait till June drop to thin peaches and apples, but last year I read that the sooner you thin, the better for the remaining fruit. You should have them no closer together than 6-8 inches apart.

I have always thinned mine out in may, 6-8" apart and kept on a strict spray cycle. I have great luck with big jucy fruit!

RosyRuthie,

I know the feeling: Last year my wife got several trees from Arborday foundation and even though some died because of last years drought, The Cheery trees hung on. Same 2-3 feet tall twigs and now there over 5 feet tall with LOTS of new leaves on them and new branches as well.

Arborday replaced the dead trees and we have apple trees as well. so far with the nice weather and plentiful rains, there growing great.

Spraying does help as when I was a kid we had a HUGH 25 feet tall cherry tree (bing size cherries) The neibor had a similar size apple tree and we traded fruit. We got usually over 6 bushels of cherries at a time. We cound`nt eat them all,give them all away and the birdscould`nt eat all the ones that fell onto the ground. God I miss that tree.

On the other had I have 5 MATURE wallnut trees with way too many nuts in the fall. Last year i had over a pick up truck full of black wallnuts.