peach tree advice please

[wayne]

a couple of weeks ago i purchased my peach tree from woolworths it looks good and i got a free salix (willow tree) free with it... anyway i left it in water to soak for a day then potted it into a 30ltr pot wiht well rotted manure, compost, soil and some sand. its now in my green house with leaves starting to grow, the blossom was just opening when i brought it and is now about to fall off (i hope to get peaces this year?). i have a nice south facing wall to plant but i was thinking about leaving it the greanhouse for this year.
if you have experiance with peaches i'd like some advice or if you have peach trees let me know how they grow for you. many thanks... wayne

[wellie]

Hi Wayne!

Trousers and I bought a Peach (fan-trained) tree last year, and I left it in it's pot, positioning it against a south-west facing wall. It did brilliantly. Then at the end of last year, I hoiked it into the cold greenhouse and left the doors open all winter. With it just blossoming now, I've hand-pollinated the blossoms (just to be on the safeside, even though there was a bee on a blossom t'other day).

I'd put it in it's pot outside once the leaves start to unfurl against a really warm south or south-west facing wall (if you can), and maybe protect it from frosts with fleece.

The danger of planting them in the greenhouse/leaving them in the greenhouse, is largely attacks from Red Spider Mite.

Lots of luck Wayne!

[bluemoon]

Try to always protect it during winter though as there is always a danger of peach-leaf curl. A garden we had many years ago had a peach ready planted, not realizing the need for protection we did nothing and only had one season out of nine where the tree wasn't affected.

[greenlung]

Hi - I grew a nectarine from a stone a few years ago : It survived a bit of peach-leaf curl after treating with some bordeaux mixture.(Or maybe I didn't water it enough, which is why the leaves started to curl?) It's now in a pot, about 3ft tall and I'm debating whether to plant it out at the base of a sunny wall or mollycoddle it and keep it in a pot. I know they're quite hardy and flower early. You didn't mention how old / tall your peach is ?

[BarleySugar]

I had a fan trained peach tree a few years ago in planted in the soil at the back of a large greenhouse, before we moved to Kent. I had loads of peaches each year, but I did use to go out to hand pollinate around midday when it flowered, and had to thin the fruit later in the year. When we moved the children bought me one of those minature ones, but I left it outside last winter It wasn't the weather that killed it, but the curl. It was so badly infected that it lost all the leaves and never recovered. As I've nowhere to keep one covered through the winter to keep the rain off I decided not to replace it.
Then guess what I found last week when planting some primroses? A sprouted peach stone, so I've potted it up and it's grown a lot in the last week. Don't know what I'll do with it