And I got the technique from Bas Van Ende, but I've never used it on peaches or other stonefruit. I didn't trust the integrity of the wood enough but now I know I could. I do sometimes use spreaders, however. I don't generally use the first large branches for my scaffolds anyway, and remove them for branches of smaller diameter that are naturally more horizontal. This may reduce the size of my first crop but beyond that it's hard to slow down a healthy peach. Oversized branches tend to make weak unions and often break under cropload if left unsupported. My peach trees start life as central leaders and I don't convert them to open center until they've begun seriously cropping. The central leader also supplies a place for spreaders- the easiest way to make branches more horizontal. One other point about brown rot. It's very important to keep the fruit thinned in a way that they never touch. I guess you could even make sure that no leaves are touching the fruit so it dries quickly. Summer pruning will also help keep the fruit dryer if done with that strategy in mind.

"If I remove one branch of the "Y", wouldn't that destroy overall shape of the tree? I thought we need to train the tree to wine glass/ tulip shape?" Bluesky, That's the shape I like best and grow all my peach trees to an "open vase". I was really just brainstorming on how you might prune your peach tree. I've never tried to grow a peach next to a wall and I assumed yours may not be getting enough sun (partly because of the wall and partly because of the lack of vigor in the tree). My idea was to grow your trunk really tall (above the deck fence) before the tree is allowed to branch out, so all the foliage would be above the deck wall in full sun. Now that I understand your tree was planted in late summer, that's probably normal amount of growth and your tree may well be getting enough sun behind the deck wall. In that case, you could train it to a typical low vase/open-center tree and keep both branches of the "Y". You might want to train more of the tree's structure away from the deck fence. It makes for a lop-sided tree, but I've done it for some of my trees planted close to property lines in my backyard. One last thing, if you are going to train the tree to a low open-center, I'd probably pull the two branches of the "Y" down a little bit. Just take a couple clothes hangers, straighten them out and push them in the ground as far as you can (these will be anchors). Then bend the two branches down some (but not so far that they break) and tie the the branches down with some string.

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.

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