Overloaded peach trees

[baymule]

Peaches!! I paid $35 for half a bushel because I wanted peaches so bad! Yours are fantastic. Thinning them out would feel like drowning kittens...

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

don't know if you have one of these or have ever thought about getting one. but you might want a fruit picker basket like this. http://www.homedepot.com/p/True-Temper-10-ft-Aluminum-Handle-Fruit-Picker-2324500/100466198

 

[Ridgerunner]

I had that problem last year and picked a couple of four gallon buckets off when they were maybe golf ball sized from two trees. I thinned them a lot more than a fist apart and still had plenty. The ones left get bigger if you thin them earlier. Your bracing should help a lot, but those peaches get really heavy and peach tree limbs are pretty brittle. Even with the bracing it might be worth picking off some of the imperfect ones, the ones with bug bites or the ones that are knotted. You 're going to have more peaches than you know what to do with. That's a nice problem.

I did not get any peaches this year, our spring was warm so they bloomed early, then a frost got them. Same thing happened with plums. But I still had a peach tree branch break. My guess is that a raccoon, possum, or groundhog climbed out on the end of a limb for some reason and the limb snapped. My fantasy is that it was trying to get away from a coyote and the coyote was waiting on the ground when the branch broke.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

& left no remains right?

 

[baymule]

 

[ninnymary]

Yep, it hurts to thin and remove those little peaches. My ultra dwarf is only a year old and produced tons! Boy was I disappointed when I had to remove what seemed like hundreds. I still had plenty to make into blueberry peach cobbler in small jars to freeze.

Mary

 

[Smiles Jr.]

I have visited my trees every day for the past two weeks to if there are any ripe enough to pick. I know, I know, the watched pot never boils

Each day I have removed several peaches that have ugly spots or are deformed. And each day there are a few more on the ground. Some of them that were on the ground have made it into sliced bits to go into a bowl of ice cream as they were very ripe and juicy.

I still have tons of fruit on the trees and my rope-twine-2x4-props-crutches seem to be working OK. I just wish the peaches would ripen soon before the branches give up and break. We have had several storms and the branches have held up very well so maybe it will be OK.

 

[PennyJo]

Wow we have a pear tree that is so overgrown but have not wanted to
do any cutting this year till fall.. the fruit on it is weighing it down but the
tree is probably 30 years old or more I will pickup one of those poles tomorrow

 

[Beekissed]

My last peach tree is still not ripening, though the fruit seems to be slowly growing. It's also disappearing and I figured probably due to drops and getting eaten by the dog...yeah, my dog loves peaches even if they are green, eats them stones and all.

Well, I've been working up there by the peaches today and happened to notice my dog walking around the tree, looking up in the branches. Thought maybe he had the cat treed up there, but no....he sat down under a particular branch, then carefully stood up on his hind legs and delicately picked a peach off the tree, trotted over to the lie down and eat it.

Nothing's safe from that dog!!!

 

[PennyJo]

Beekissed the dog likes peaches eh? how very cool