Peach

Site and soil

Peach needs full sun, eight hours or more, and sharp drainage. A sandy loam at pH 6.0 to 6.5 is ideal. Wet feet kill peaches faster than any pest: a site where water stands after rain will lose the tree to root rot. On heavy ground, plant on a mound or a slope.

Frost is the other siting rule. Peach blooms in March or April, earlier than apples, and an open flower is killed at about 28 degrees. Plant on a slope where cold air drains downhill, never in a frost pocket, and avoid the warmest south-facing spot, which pushes bloom even earlier. A north or east slope that delays bloom a few days is often the best peach site on a hill farm.

Spacing

Mature trees run 15 to 25 ft tall and wide. Set them 15 to 20 ft apart, or 12 to 15 ft if you will keep them pruned to an open vase at picking height.

Planting

Plant in early spring while dormant. Fall planting works in milder sites but a young peach is more winter-tender than an apple.

• Dig the hole as deep as the root system and twice as wide.
• Set the tree with the root flare level with the ground.
• Backfill with native soil and water in well.
• Mulch 3 to 4 inches deep, pulled back from the trunk.
• Paint the lower trunk with diluted white latex paint or wrap it to prevent winter sunscald, which splits the bark and opens the tree to canker and borers.

Pollination

Peach is self-fertile and insect-pollinated. One tree sets a full crop, and bees carry the pollen during the early bloom. A second tree is for more fruit and a longer season, not for fertility.

First-year care

• Water deeply once a week through the first growing season and in dry spells the second year.
• Keep a grass-free mulched circle 3 to 4 ft across.
• Guard the trunk against rabbits, voles and deer.
• No fertilizer in year one. In later years a light feeding in early spring is plenty; an overfed peach grows wood instead of fruit and is more prone to winter injury.
• Remove any fruit that sets in the first year.

Pruning

Peach bears on last year's wood, so it needs more pruning than any other fruit tree, every year, to keep young fruiting wood coming. Train it to an open center, a vase of three or four scaffold limbs with the middle kept clear so light and air reach the whole tree.

Prune in late winter or early spring, just before or during bloom when the weather is dry. Remove about a third of the previous season's growth, take out shoots growing straight up or into the center, and cut back the scaffolds to keep the tree at a height you can pick. Thin the fruit in late May to one peach every 6 to 8 inches; a tree left to carry everything it sets will give small fruit and break limbs.

Watch for brown rot on the fruit, peach leaf curl on spring leaves, and gummy sap at the base of the trunk, which signals peach tree borer. Clean cuts, good air movement and a clear mulch ring prevent more than any spray.

Harvest

Seedling peaches begin bearing in about 3 to 5 years. Fruit ripens from July into September depending on the tree. A peach is ready when the background color under the blush turns from green to yellow or cream, the flesh gives slightly to a gentle squeeze near the stem, and the fruit comes off with a light twist. Flavor and sugar develop on the tree, so let them hang as long as the birds and raccoons allow.

Peaches keep a few days at room temperature and about a week refrigerated. A mature tree gives 50 to 100 pounds. What you cannot eat fresh cans, freezes and dries well. Pick up fallen and rotted fruit through the season to break the brown rot cycle for next year.