Peaches are somewhat unique. Many fruit trees are prone to "stall" easily. I've sometimes had difficulty sizing up apple and plum trees, at least difficulty sizing them up very fast. I've found peaches are different. If they are planted in well drained soil (or a raised planting) mulched generously, and sprayed for leaf curl, they grow like a weed regardless of abuse. You can do all kinds of things to them you'd never consider doing to a young apple. Prune them aggressively multiple times through the summer, forgo irrigation during drought, let them bear fruit as soon as they want. They will still put on generous growth and don't slow down. I'd let your peach tree fruit if it wants. Just thin the fruits to about 1 per 12" of branch space so they don't excessively pull down the new forming scaffolds.

Now I am very glad to be wrong on this topic - it's very good news to hear that breeders are actually focusing on taste. Jonagold is quite delicious. I read "The Fruit Hunters" and the author interviewed the Zeigers of Zeiger genetics. They admitted that most of the focus of their stone fruits has been on shippability, but they claim to now have changed their focus, and they are trying to improve on taste - the goal is to have a peach that tastes as good as the old heirlooms, but also ships well and stays good for weeks at a time. Yes, I am not sure I would even know how to grow apples on the East coast. I feel very fortunate to live in the Santa Cruz mountains, we have about the best climate one could ever ask for when it comes to apples. They are so tasty in my orchard, that is what got me so enthusiastic about apples. I spent years trying to grow all sorts of things from subtropicals like macademias to citrus and stone fruits. None rival the perfection of the apples in my orchard. We even get outstanding Summer apples because our Summers here (upper 60's to mid 70's daytime, mid 40's to low 50's night time in the middle of July and August) are equivalent to East Coast Fall weather. Our first apple to ripen is Anna around late May, and the last apple to ripen is Williams Pride in late January. Feb through April is covered primarily by storage apples. But we do get seasonal fluctuations here too that shift which apples end up tasting good. We get a period of hot Fall weather that - if it shows up too early tends to ruin the early Fall apples which seem not to like much heat. If the heat doesn't show up until October, then we get nearly perfect apples on all the varieties. Last Fall the Cox orange pippin harvest was ruined because the hot weather showed up at the end of August. They went mealy very quickly.

Ahh, I can see how that could be interpreted. I wasn't clear at all. Better if I'd restricted it to "below the first fruit truss if those branches would be touching the ground" or something like that as it depends on how high up the plant that first truss is for me. In some cases, depending on the type plant/variety, you may well find a low growing truss and that all the branches below that first fruit truss would have ground contact and should be removed. But just as often you might find that the first truss doesn't develop until 1/3 or even 1/2 way up the main stem and on those I wouldn't want to remove any leaves except for those with ground contact. I have a couple of new varieties I'm trying this year that are already 4' + tall yet have no bloom trusses at all yet so I sure wouldn't want to prune them. I get concerned because while some growers do regularly advocate removing all the branches below the first truss regardless of how high up the stem it may be. That's their choice. But there is also this crock of a book floating around out there that gets marketed by its author here every now and then. Won't name it or him but he advocates removing all the branches below every truss leaving only the leaves on the very top of the main stem. So I need to be more careful to be clear on my position on the issue. Does that help clarify? Dave

Hi Barrie. As I said, this is the 1st year in the ground. All but (2) of the same variety (Brightwell) were 1 year old plants , the Brightwell were said to be 2 years old plants. They all looked the same to me. I planted (8) total plants, (2) of each kind. And though growth habits are somewhat similar, not all have grown the same. The attached pic is a Brightwell that shot up a lone cane that grew to 50" before I cut the top off to about 36" to prevent a floppy berry supporter next year. This Brightwell is now 5'-0 wide. And I think too much growth has gone into horizontal branches that don't look anything like berry supporting wood. I believe that I could have directed more upward growth in lieu of as shown in the pic. That is a tangled mess of crossing branches on the sides.. I have only internet experience. Training/pruning properly appears to be my latest challenge. And it appears to be an important one. How tall are your berry bushes versus their width? My end goal is still only getting blueberries. I have never grown a blueberry that didn't die within 30 days probably? I have never picked a blueberry. I am growing them for my wife. Married 30 years this year, I thought she deserved my best effort. (she doesn't look at them. LOL)