I’m new here. If this post belongs somewhere else, let me know.
So I live next to Philadelphia and have a peach orchard in Northeast PA on ground a friend owns…and it’s about 3 hours north of where I live. I had taken off work for a week in April to plant trees (it was a busy tree planting, I had roughly 320 new trees) and I was in a good mood because the Rich Mays, Redhavens and Cresthavens were loaded with flowers.
And then frost hit.
I’m still bummed about it.
The bright spot is that soil acidity has been a recurring issue…the soil tested at 4.9.
I’ve been applying lime for two years now and the results are coming up pretty positive.
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Nice young orchard 
. Please keep us updated, especially with photos.
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Peach trees have a lot shallow roots and they do not like to compete with grass.
If you check any peach farm, they made sure they mulch well and keeping grass several feet away from the trees.
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Depends on rootstock.
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So this is actually the 2nd planting of trees I’ve had on the property. Starting 10 years ago I planted roughly 460 trees between 2013 and 2017.
Deer killed all but 7 during rutting season.
As much as I was seriously broke at the time I just had to buckle down and pay for a fence.
The second issue that’s been holding them back has been the pH. The two areas that have been doing well have been at the foot of the hill where the soil’s alluvial (or technically colluvial) silt from the hill and an area where I’ve been particularly diligent at applying lime.
Even with weeds encroaching as long as the fence doesn’t have any holes in it the trees in the very silty area grow a solid 2 feet on me. They seem to take the competition in stride.
And the rootstock is Lovell
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Good move.
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If you have not adjusted the soil pH to 6.5 previously, liming should be done before you prepare the soil so that the lime will be mixed throughout the planting area. When added to the surface and not plowed in, lime takes years to move down into the soil. Lime an area 10 feet by10 feet where each tree is to be planted. Similar to lime, phosphorus moves down through the soil slowly and thus should be incorporated along with lime before planting based on soil test results.
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Thank you!
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Thank you!
I majored in Plant Science in college…and then went back for Soil Science…this is bringing back memories of nutrient cycling and ion exchange.
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So I worked for an orchard that’s decent sized for the Philly area for a couple years…when I first got there the orchard manager said, ‘fruit trees don’t get fertilized’…11 years later I’m still good friends with the orchard and he knows fertilizes the orchard areas with calcium nitrate…I suppose it’s not entirely his fault he didn’t know better because he worked for the largest strawberry grower in the Northeast for 11 years prior to working at an orchard so fruit trees weren’t his area of expertise.
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@thebentonpeach Are you sure it was the frost that zapped all of your flowers? I am in Bloomsburg, about a 15 minute drive south of you, and I have been overwhelmed with the peach fruit set this year (I was out thinning a little more today). Obviously, there are some differences in temps and microclimates, but I would think that the disparity between us would not be that stark.
Perhaps the age of the trees have something to do with it. I have a young seedling that flowered up nicely, but did not set fruit.
Welcome to Growing Fruit!
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This is my dream - a fully enclosed orchard/garden.
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June drop!
Actually that’s a question and a comment. (I realize that’s not what you said but bear with me)
So one of the things that was on my mind was June drop…which is something that despite having several years of experience working on orchards prior to starting my own I hadn’t seen…I’m guessing that’s because the orchards I had worked on were already established with mature trees and really didn’t have any new blocks where I could get orchard establishment experience.
One of the things I did this past spring was to prune a little more heavily than normal…Rich Mays while they produce excellent fruit for the early season want to grow vertically, I wish they wouldn’t…I’m making an attempt to get the trees to grow horizontally and bushy…unfortunately the downside is a lot of leaf area’s removed leading to carbon deficient leading to June drop?
So yes, the small tree size was on my mind…now I’m thinking that’s the culprit (this comment’s kinda rambling and confusing…my brain’s a weird place)
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It’s a noble and worthy pursuit
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Hi Jim. Welcome.
Like yourself, I’m one of the few small commercial peach growers on this forum, @blueberrythrill is another one. Right now we only have about 600 peach trees (we lost about 100 from last winter). Like you, we have a deer fence, but sounds like nowhere near your deer pressure. Sounds like your deer are a lot meaner too. The most trees we lost in a year from deer were something like 25 peach trees. Most years it was less than a dozen they killed.
The peach trees you show in your photos aren’t big enough to start bearing. Even if they flower, most of the time they will abort most of the fruit.
I’d echo what @mamuang said about grass control. Even if you think you are getting good growth, you’ll get better with a weed free strip where the trees are growing. This isn’t just based on my own experience. Virtually all the recs from peach specialists in the Midwest, South and Northeast say the same. Almost all pics of commercial orchards from those areas show a weed free zone. CA is possibly different. It’s mostly a desert there, so the culture for peaches can be different there.
I would also get rid of the tree guards, unless you have a severe rabbit problem. They are somewhat beneficial to protect the trunks against herbicide spray, but it’s just more places for OFM to overwinter. Peach tree borers also like those tree guards. If you want to protect the trunks against herbicide spray, straight white latex paint works well.
Anyway, it looks like you are off to a good start. I assume your orchard is going to be retail sales?
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Hi olpea!
Thanks for the info!
I’m going to start by saying my orchard’s 3 hours away from where I live…that kinda puts a monkey wrench in doing a lot…I do what I can on weekends when I’m there.
Also a friend of mine owns the ground…at this point between the 3 hour drive and not having a purchase agreement worked out there’s a lot I’m not going to do until the trees mature and crop reliably and I can work out something out with my friend…fruit growing’s not his thing so I have a lot of moments with him where I just go, ‘that’s not how that works.’
So with weed control I have roughly 4 acres planted. In order to have a good herbicide program I’d need something on wheels with which to spray and a reliable water source and some place to store everything. My friend has a barn on the property that’s full of his stuff (a case gas tractor, a Ford jubilee that intermittently runs, shotgun equipment, stuff left over from his auto body business etc cetera) and he has a seabox full of more of his stuff (a generator that was used when his dad lived there, some dirt bikes, a Craftsman lawn tractor etc cetera). So I’d have to build a shed or buy a shipping for my own use to store herbicides among other pesticides as well as install water to tank mix herbicides and equipment.
A logistical nightmare doing that from 3 hours away not to mention the cost (I’m not exactly flat broke anymore. I’d describe my current situation as slightly better than flat broke).
The other option is to put down weed fabric (which I’ve done). The issue with weed fabric is that with being three hours away I don’t get to weedwhack around the weed fabric that often. Next time I’m at my orchard I’ll finish weedwhacking the areas with the really tall grass and snap pics. When I do that it actually looks like I’m putting effort into weed control. Unfortunately when the grass is tall it looks I put no effort into weed. May I need a bit of the PT Barnum bluster and sell the effort in what I’ve been doing a little better.
Sales.
I’ve generated a lot of interest in what I’ve been doing via Facebook. Social media doesn’t have to be evil, it just lends itself to that pursuit on occasion. 2 years I got 75 pounds of fruit off the (even smaller at the time) trees which is what’s been frustrating me about this year. I guess I can’t control the external stuff that influences crop load.
So 2 years ago I got fruit off my Rich May, redhaven and Cresthaven trees. Everyone I personally know who had the fruit really enjoyed them and was willing to pay for them. Do you know who didn’t pay me for fruit? A caterer and a grocer. Granted the caterer was a contact through my friend who owns the ground…he has another property he rents to the caterer, took a half bushel box of Redhavens to the caterer that I had handed to him and he never handed any money back to me. Grrr. I really do need to start saying no money no fruit.
In a nutshell word of mouth so far has been working out pretty well…I just didn’t figure I’d get 75 pounds of fruit and then nothing for two years straight…I guess that’s just how it goes sometimes.
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“The earth is slow but the oxen are patient”
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Welcome to the forum! Have to ask you why not blueberries? Your ph is ideal and blueberries are highly sought after and easy to grow! Your peaches look really good! It is my opinion that the grass can wait for now. They are definately right about competition. One option is to get wood chips dumped out there and use the chips under the peaches. The professionals dont do that. They load up with roundup turn the pressure way down and spray around the trees drip line avoiding hitting the tree. In the case of my standard pears the grass does not offer much of a competition. Standard trees are not commonly planted but deer can’t reach the fruit, they shade out grass etc…
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I’ll endorse that idea. Afterwards I’d also compensate for the chips under the trees by scattering Sul-Po-Mag in ~4 ft wide swaths adjacent to the trees in parallel to the rows. If your rows are 16 feet apart this will leave an untreated swath ~8 ft wide down the center of each “aisle” between the rows.
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So ten years when I planted my first peach trees (yes I know the trees in the pics are less than ten years old…the deer apparently hate me) I did the dumb thing and didn’t get the soil tested…
I paid the price for that
So I I’ve for other orchards that’ve grown blueberries, I’d grow them for personal consumption…and I might do that one of these years…with the netting and labor required to harvest blueberries on a scale larger than a handful of shrubs I’d drive myself nuts…
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