cough: 1. If you have already planted 8 peach trees, and are still looking for more, I invite you to consider the following sincerely offered suggestions: a) Make sure you know what is involved in growing 1-3 peach trees before you plant a lot more. Growing peaches is difficult even for experienced backyard growers. Peaches can have a lot of insect and disease problems, and usually do. Do not believe anyone who tells you they are easy to grow "organically". b) Before planting a lot of any one thing, have a plan for the use of the fruit in the event you actually get some production. 2. I have a pretty good-size backyard orchard here, and currently have 5 peach trees. I could actually get by with three good varieties, one early, one late-midseason, and one good peento (flat) type. This year, 3 of the trees produced heavily, a mature Golden Jubilee, a young Contender, and a young (white) Sugar Giant. The Contender ripened extremely early -- July 7, and, since early peaches are not much good for freezing, we had to hustle to eat or give away the more than 50 peaches this tree produced. They are all ripe within a period of a week. The average person, weighing less than 300 lbs., can eat a maximum of 2 large peaches per day. Next to ripen was Sugar Giant, a sweet peach without a lot of flavor. It suffered badly from bacterial spot, and at least half the peaches were thrown out. This peach, a modern variety from the Zaiger program in California, was a mistake to plant here. 3. Because of the 4-day Easter freeze, the Flat Wonderful peento type had only a dozen peaches, but they were truly fine eating, and early to ripen. They have a firm flesh, but wonderful flavor. Because of their odd shape, peento peaches are difficult to cut up and prepare for freezing. The little pit resides right in the middle of the doughnut, and the peach does not split apart like a large freestone. If this tree produces a full crop next season, we will again be shoveling them in shortly after Contender is gone. I would be cautious about planting any of the white peento varieties, which are likely to be far more sensitive to brown rot and other maladies. 4. Golden Jubilee is a late-midseason peach, and this mature (12 year) tree was an abundant producer this year, with about 125 peaches, of which at least 3 dozen weighed one pound or more. My spouse froze 16 quarts of these peaches, which are firm, easy to prepare, and fine for freezing. But we still have a dozen of these peaches in the refrigerator. They ripened the last few days of August and early September. 5. The bottom line here is: I really don't know what we would do with any more peaches. Once you have figured out how to grow them, and protect them against all their enemies, they can be very abundant. After two early sprays with Imidan against plum curculio, and careful thinning, all my peaches were bagged in try-on "footies", which protected them against insects (mainly oriental fruit moth) for the balance of the season. And very effectively - without any further spraying. Footie installation is, however, tedious, and calls for some acquired skill. 6. If you are going to grow peaches, you should become familiar as soon as possible with diseases such as bacterial spot (on the fruit), bacterial canker (on the limbs), and insects like the plum curculio (early) and oriental fruit moth (all season long). After that, you can get some advice here on how to deal with those problems. You should select the varieties to plant very carefully, based on such factors as their ripening times, and resistance to diseases like bacterial spot. Planting what Home Depot happens to have on hand is not the best way to choose your peach varieties. 7. Without considerable effort to learn the essentials of peach growing, you can plant 100 trees and still not get any decent, usable peaches. On the other hand, two or three carefully chosen peach varieties, with the right care, can produce enough peaches to make your family tired of eating peaches, and the neighbors too. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

it had tons of bloom and leaves on it last year , it gave me six small tender peaches . winter came and it went dormant and i thought it was dead till last month i went to throw it out and bam one flower and to leaves ...... soo uuuuh W.T do i do with it ... i plan to transplant it to a larger pot . what fertilizer do i feed how do i prune it ... it was stupid impulse but at Walmart but i don't wanna lose it .... and what are these .... do i cut them are they aprt of the drawf or the root stock ...sorry about the weeds my garden needs work

It won't recover on its own. Also, how serious the disease will be from one year to the next, depends on the weather as well as how susceptible or resistant the tree is. Wet springs assist disease develop mush more than will a dry spring. You might ask at a local garden center about the disease tolerance of your specific kind of peach. And then, if it's it quite susceptible, replace it with a more resistant kind. For now, collect and discard the affected leaves. Any that you can't reach will fall of their own accord; collect and discard as you see them. At the end of the season, collect and discard all fallen leaves. Next year, be certain to spray with an appropriate product.

Several issues here: Peach Leaf Curl, too late to prevent it this year. Pick off those diseased leaves and destroy them. During a dormant season, spray the tree with copper. Copper is used as fungicide here. Peaches have many pests that attack fruit since they are tiny. The serious pests are Oriental Fruit moths, Plum Curculios and codling moths. They usually lay eggs on fruit, larvae hatched and tunnel inside the fruit to feed. Fruit drop prematurely. These moths breed in soil under the trees. You need to pick up all those dropped fruit and throw them out with trash. You need insecticide for it. Ripe peaches can also get brown rot. Another fungicide is needed. oozing at the base of the tree could be a peach borer issue. Clean out the jelly substance, look for holes at the base of the tree, sometimes a bit below a soil line and use a wire to poke the holes and kill the borers. Insecticide is needed.. You can look up university extension services near you and read up on these problems and how to treat them. There are more organic way to treat these issues. They often is more labor intensive with less effectiveness.