I’m putting in Indian Blood Free and Rio Oso Gem (this one might be ill advised), both on Lovell. I’d also like to put in another Glohaven. I have three potential locations:
Back orchard - south facing but sheltered, things wake up later here. Nearby apple, plum, cherry trees and fruit bushes. Soil is waterlogged in early spring usually lasting a few weeks - enough that if you try to dig a hole it’s going to be filled and water puddles on the ground surface.
Sheltered near pawpaws, two other peach trees, and a row of pears. This one is a little warmer microclimate because of my neighbor’s home and fence, and a thick paw paw grove. It gets a little less sun due to nearby mature trees.
South facing slope, totally exposed - near a neighbor’s peach trees and some of my persimmons and quince. No windbreak, great sun, a busy road to the west (but a decent distance away).
My worries are bloom time, exposure, and wet feet. I’m leaning towards 1 though because I don’t have any peaches back there and am curious as to how they’d fair with just that little spring wetness and delayed bloom.
Thoughts welcome. My neighbors do not spray their mature peach trees and have decent crops every year, but I do not personally have a handle on disease pressure here yet.
Three sounds like the best location for growing peaches. If you have other objectives, then go for it. If it flops, you’ll know why. Personally, I won’t plant a tree where I think it might die.
+1 … location 3 seems like a winner. What zone and location are you in? Wondering if there are other things you can try in location 1 instead of peaches…
Or you could do a really solid mound for them in location 1? But is there enough Sun?
Saw this other thread on waterlogged locations and what to plant:
I ended up removing the quince and stone fruit from my low spot. They had too much bacterial and fungus disease in the damp environment. Some pears are doing ok but, I can’t get down there to spray when it’s soggy. Only thing I plant down there now is persimmon.
I’m in 6a, pretty solidly at this point. I have some plums on marianna and apples on mm111, g890, and g969 that have tolerated the soil so far, but I can’t say that with confidence until a couple more years because last year was unusually dry for spring. You make a good suggestion about using mounds; I hadn’t thought about that. There are a couple spots still open that do get full sun. Location 1 would definitely be the easiest, I think I’m hesitating because I’m already thinking… what else can I put out there in the future?
I put my all of my quince in location 1 because I am really trying to get good crops with at maximum organic spray only. I was thinking of putting persimmon in the soggy spot but not sure if American improved varieties will get too tall for the 15x25 spacing. It does get nice and dry in 3 after a few weeks, but it’s miserably wet until then. I’m probably in for trouble with the plums I’ve got back there, between that and the wild cherry with black knot lurking in our woods.
I have been planting Persimmon on a 15’ x 20’ spacing. I will probably have to take out every other Named American in 10 or 15 years. Some of the Hybrids are quite dwarfing and will likely die due to an crazy weather event at some point. 15’ spacing is generous for them.
Pure and simple, more sun more better unless you live where crop failures to hard frost are common. Better light leads to higher brix and less brown rot. Eastern light is especially important for reducing BR but western light probably contributes more to sugar as the trees are more photosynthetically active in the afternoon than morning unless the temps are above… gee I don’t know when peaches begin closing their stomata due to high heat, or even when photosynthesis is most productive by temps. I have anecdotally observed an advantage to late afternoon sun compared to early morning sun where trees are deprived of the other end. .
The amount of light is most crucial in the 3 weeks leading up to harvest. That’s when fruit gets most of its sugar and most of its rot.
Peaches really don’t like wet feet. You could plant on the south facing (for max sun) on a mound. If you look at pics of Olpea’s orchard all the peaches are elevated.
I think it has to be spot 1. Thankfully I did some measuring and if I take out a couple spindly norway maples (that needed to go anyway) I can fit 4 trees, so if I plant the 2 peaches there I’ve still got 2 future spots not zero. Very good point about rot.
I’ve never tried mounds but it seems like they might help me get some trees in spots that are sunny but otherwise have less ideal soil. I was going to do something like that with blueberries.