How to grow peaches

It's been quite a journey. It began with an 'Avalon Pride' peach-leaf curl resistant peach tree, planted in 2006. The peach tree cost about £26.00

I don't know anyone else who has grown a peach tree successfully AND organically outside in the North West of England. In the first year (2007), I spent a good while fretting about frost protection. The peach tree lost it's blooms and succumbed to peach leaf curl, even though it was supposed to be peach leaf curl resistant.

By the second year, I left the tree to it's own devices. The blooms stayed on. I planted garlic round the base (which is supposed to deter fungal diseases) and hoped for the best.

To my delight lots of fruitlets appeared. I made the mistake of thinning them. (We had about twenty originally and I took about a dozen off). Don't follow the advice you get from gardening books too slavishly!

We were left with FIVE fruits, and here is a picture of one of them. They're about half the size of the ones you see in the shops, so here's hoping that in a week or two, with some sun - they might even be ready to eat. Anyone else with a peach tree out there? Let me know via the comments box...

Avalon Pride Peach Tree

May. It's that time of year when you feel as if you've put a lot of effort into your kitchen garden - and it's not paying off yet - as there isn't an awful lot to harvest. It's too early.

But look at these. They are very small peach fruitlets left over from thinning our Avalon Pride peach tree.

It's been quite a journey for us all. The tree went in two seasons ago (in autumn 2007). The first year it was hit badly by frost, and despite being sold as 'peach leaf curl resistant' it got peach leaf curl too.

I sprayed with Bordeaux mixture the first year, didn't want to do it again if it could be avoided, as this is no longer recommended for organic fruit growing. So I decided to start growing garlic around it. I'd heard garlic is a natural antiseptic and that it would keep fungal diseases like peach leaf curl away. So far we're in luck.

Peach trees are said to flower very early in the year, and that presented us with another challenge. It gets quite windy down on our allotment plot, and it's almost impossible to keep decent frost protection in place on a small tree. Also, as regular readers will know, our plot is some distance away from the house and I can't go down there every day, so even if I did use frost protection, I couldn't take it off regularly to allow pollinating insects to get at the flowers. I have heard that some people use paintbrushes to pollinate peaches. But if you ask me, life really IS too short...

So this spring, we decided to let our peach tree fend for itself. It survived the frost. I don't exactly know whether this was due to the weather alone, or the fact that the tree is now older and taller - (and therefore less susceptible to frost). We now have some frost protection in the shape of a Cherry Plum hedge, (cherry plums were once used as a wind break for orchards) so that might have been a factor.

As far as pollination goes, this is supposed to be tricky too. The reason is the same - the early flowering - there aren't so many pollinating insects about. But this year on our allotment our rosemary bush flowered really early too - and I noticed a lot of bee activity early on.

So, as you can see - we ended up with quite a number of fruitlets - some of which I have removed to enable the other peaches to grow strongly and well. There were about twenty five fruitlets on the tree, and I've removed about ten. I hope this was the right thing to do, so far I've not found anybody who is growing an Avalon Pride Peach Tree in the U.K. I'd be glad to hear from readers if they know someone I can swap notes with...

So - looks like all we need now is a hot summer....and for the vandals to stay away.

The Peach Tree Challenge

Sometimes we do apparently foolish things don't we?

My daughter was just about a year old (remember the hot summer of 2006?) We were in town, she was really thirsty and I was searching for a snack she could easily eat whilst sitting in her push chair. We passed our organic supermarket and I bought two fresh, organic PEACHES for her to eat on the way home. I will never EVER forget the look of delight on her face as she scoffed them. She was so proud to hold the huge fruit in her tiny hands herself and the juice ran down her face, quenching her thirst in the sun.

It was at that moment I made a momentous decision. I was going to BUY, PLANT and GROW peaches for her, and I was going to TRY to do it ORGANICALLY. Planted our peach tree (in the autumn of that year - 2006). Didn't know what I was letting myself in for. Didn't really understand why organic peaches are such a challenge to grow well in this country. You live and learn!

I knew about the fungal disease PEACH LEAF CURL , so I settled on the peach variety AVALON PRIDE - (which is said to have some resistance) thinking it would solve the problem. It didn't. The first picture shows the flowers on the tree in early Spring of 2007. Shortly after they appeared the tree came down with what I thought was Peach Leaf Curl. Leaves started dropping off - and so I sprayed with Bordeaux Mixture at the appropriate times. (Not really recommended as an organic remedy anymore but so far it has sorted that problem).

The tree was now in good heart. But in the early Spring of 2008 I still had the frosts to deal with. The flower buds appear early in the year - if there is a ground or air frost they can be completely destroyed and turn black. That's exactly what happened in 2008.

Why didn't you use FROST PROTECTION you might ask? Well, if I had a back garden, or of the tree were growing against a wall, it might be an easy matter to watch the forecast and pop the fleece or frost bag on and off whenever there was a danger of a freeze. However, my lovely allotment is some distance away, and it's just not possible to be dashing down there in the dark every evening to do the biz. I tried building various structures too (this one is made out of the fleece which comes with a mini-greenhouse)...
...but the winds on our allotment got the better of me, and they never stayed on long enough to do any good.

The good news is, as the tree gets bigger it may be MORE resistant to frost. The persistently cold weather we have been having this year may also help. I haven't been too bothered that the tree didn't fruit in the first two years, as I know it needs to build up strength to do so. But I'm going for the burn this year......so over to you, my (loyal) readers:

Who else has tried growing an AVALON PRIDE or other FREE STANDING peach tree in this challenging British climate of ours and how did you fare? You can send comments via the comments box on this page. Do tell!