He may have seen a squirrel run away, but pepper has been tried extensively without success from posts I've read on the internet over the years. I've been fighting squirrels here for over 20 years and fought ground squirrels in S. CA starting in the early '70's. I can't be certain your cayenne isn't working but ground habanero seeds failed me when squirrels were starving here. I coated my peaches with enough pepper to give me hiccups using a sticker with nasty extract. Even on this web site we've had very experienced fruit growers swearing by squirrel remedies based on extensive anecdotal experience-years of it. One was put to the test by Olpea when I seemed not to get any results from peanut butter and plaster of paris bon bons. Some members claimed to have found dead bodies when laying this treat out calling it a total panacea. Olpea captured a couple of squirrels and fed one a diet of these bon bons and even when it was its only food these bon bons seemed to have no affect on the creature. I often say one man's anecdotal epiphany is another's total BS. Even my baffles have somewhat mixed success and I've found that squirrels behave differently from site to site, hungry or not.

As Don mentioned, the trunks are a little small. You seem to have them fairly ridgedly anchored. This will produce smaller trunks. The bending and waving of a free standing tree increases the trunk size. I don't support any of my peach trees, and I'm probably in a windier location than you. I do keep my young trees shorter though. I also think the growth is a little slow for a second leaf tree. Mulch will make a huge difference in growth, just keep an eye on rodents, especially with the woods nearby. The woods will also eventually provide you with plenty of plum curculio, so get a game plan in place. Eight peaches spread out on all those trees shouldn't bother them too much. I'd go ahead and get your fruit. You have what looks like a pretty good case of bacterial spot. I don't think it's scab, which can look very similar. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot to be done for bac. spot. I think some folks have reported marginal success spraying diluted copper during the growing season. This season I sprayed a dormant copper spray to try to knock it down. What's more important is peach leaf curl. If you aren't spraying for it, you probably have it. I say that because if your weather has been wet enough to cause significant bac. spot, it's been wet enough for leaf curl. That would also help explain why your trees are growing a little slow.

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 would be okay, however, if too much fruit is the problem then I would try thinning out the fruit.