Hi LostLandscapes-
When I plant bare root apple/pear trees, I get a little 36" stick in the mail with some roots, and I expect to wait at least 3 years or so before getting an apple. Until then, it's quite normal for it to drop the immature fruit as the tree realizes it can't handle it yet. In fact, even if it doesn't drop the fruit itself, when dealing with such a small tree, you should remove the fruit yourself, so the tree can concentrate on growing and getting itself established. Did you get some sort of larger bare root trees? Thanks,
-Glenn

Hi Glenn, thanks for responding, that is some interesting info there. These trees were no more than 4 feet tall when I received them.....

Hi LostLandscapes-

Ok then, it's sounding like these trees are just too young to be bearing fruit. Just to confirm, could you guess at the diameter of the tree a bit above the graft union? My trees arrive at only about 1/2"-5/8" in diameter. If your 4' trees are small like that, then it is indeed too young, and you should even remove any remaining fruit to help the tree grow. I'd suspect you'd even need to do the same next year, but I think peaches to bear slightly earlier than apples, so get a 2nd opinion. Sorry to give you the bad news about waiting for a few years!

I only know a little bit about apple trees, but not really anything about peaches/nectarines. Hopefully some other people will come back with info for you on that. Two suggestions though... 1) you'll need to remind people where you live so they'll have half of a chance at guessing what your pests will be. 2.) I bet if you search these forums you'll find lots of good info on peach/nectarine spraying.
Good luck,
-Glenn

Hi Glenn, thanks again. I live in San Francisco, on the edge of the infamous fog bank. But my trees are in black containers right up against a south facing wall so I bet they live in a slightly warmer environment than surrounding areas. Thats all good info. And it leads me to another question: since they are in containers (15 gal) and my space is limited, my goal is to keep them small. So should pulling the fruit now be as much of an imperative for me? I really wouldn't mind if they didn't get much bigger than they are now (but I know thats impossible).

And to answer your other question, the diameter above the graft union is one inch.

Thanks.

Hi LostLanscapes-
Wow, a 1" caliper bare root tree. I didn't even know they came that big. That being the case, perhaps it's best to wait for other people to respond before taking action. Good luck.
-Glen

Hello,
By chance were these called ez-pick trees? I have seen some bare root trees labeled as such that were large like this. Anyway, with a large caliper bareroot I think it is actually even more imparitive to remove all fruit the first year because the tree is likely to be a little out of balance yet and you really want the tree to make good rootgrowth to catch up with the large top growth. Beleive me it will reward you down the line for this action. I have made the mistake before of letting a first year tree produce too many fruit and in one case it took the tree another 3 years to produce another decent crop for me. If you remove fruit in year one you will likely get a decent crop year two.

Just my 2 cents,
Scape

Remove all fruit the first year. If you want to keep them very small just prune them all during the year. Go to Dave Wilson website and he has some great info on pruning for size.
RED