[Mr Rotavator]

Afternoon all,

I just bought myself a peach tree in Lidl for £3.99, a bargain I thought I also picked up a Bramley for the same money. Now after reading a bit about them on the web (peach tree) and Carol Klein's article on this site I'm thinking I may have bought some trouble. I am on a fairly exposed site, but the tree will be protected from the westerly winds by a greenhouse and it will not be against a south facing wall. Also we do not get many frosts here in early spring.

So my question is; has anyone had any experience, successes or failures with growing peaches?

Thanks,

Andy.

[spudulike]

Purchased three of their peach trees four years agao now. From the third year had more peaches than on the shelves at Tesco. Mine are ouside in a fairly exposed site, I have been putting fleece over them in February although not this year so far as the blossom is no where near as advanced this year and I hand pollinate when the blossom is open.

All are in open ground and givem a mulch of well rotted horse manure and a feed of fish blood and bone in late march. Nothing compares to rippened on the tree peaches, juicy and so sweet  Makes the shop bought peached taste like s---. I have some pictures but not able to figure out how to upload them. Could do with an auto upload piece of sofware. Perhaps someone can put me right?   

[Spana]

I'll show you mine instead sorry spudulike

I'm not that far from you.  I find everything depends on the weather at blossom time.  This tree was purchased as a Victoria Plum but turned out to be a peach The photo was 2 years ago and last year it had even more fruits.  I don't give it any special care other that a good dollop of muck and a bit of wood ash in spring.  My biggest problem is getting the fruits ripe on the tree before the squirrels have them away

Is your  tree a named variety ?

[Trillium]

I've grown them for many years and other than yearly spring attacks of peach leaf curl, they're no problem. Keep the trees fed, pickup all the fallen affected leaves and bin them, and the tree will quickly recover.

Like others, they all get a yearly mulch of rotted manure, BFB, and monthly doses of liquid fish fertilizer which they seem to particularly like. Regular watering in dry times is a must.

As for pruning, they don't need much really but there are some good youtube videos of how to prune peach trees.

The flavour truly is worth the bit of effort.

[Spana]

....and just to give you a bit more reassurance that you've bought well, i've also bought Lidl fruit trees in the past.  Of the 5 plum trees i have, bought from different places, the Lidl plum tree is the best cropper, the best looking tree and was the cheapest :happy:

[Mr Rotavator]

Thanks for all of your replies, I'm feeling more optomistic now.

The tree is named as 'Red Haven'.

[madcat]

Do - mine has done great too and I am north of you in a somewhat chilly location.

Just remember - the spring is important and trees do have off years.  So dont give up if you have a bad one!

[Trillium]

The off years are usually due to overproducing the previous year (as I well know  ). Once the tree gets into production, it's important to thin out the fruit for several reasons: to improve size of fruits, to improve fruit flavour, to reduce weight on branches so they don't snap. I'm guilty 2 years in a row of too much fruit and snapped branches. This year I will bite the bullet and thin the fruit, and I'll get regular production rather than biennial production.

[dno71]

I have a red haven peach tree and the fruit is so tasty and its a heavy cropper! definitely a good buy just watch for the dreaded leaf curl in spring.