Thanks, Dawn.

There didn't appear to be too many peaches as the tree flowered in the midst of a cold snap which nipped some of the blooms. I'll take your advice and see what happens next year.

The apple tree next to it did not produce any fruit, and it bloomed at the same time. It's obvious the trees haven't been cared for, so will see if I can shape them up, feed them, and encourage them to produce.

Sandy

My peach trees are having a rough time this year . As Dawn said prune, thin fruit and it will help. Those mummies could be brown rot

Sandy,

You're welcome.

If the apple tree is fairly young, it might be too young to fruit. They take a few years longer to come into production.

I forgot to say to be sure to clean up any mummified fruit still laying around if there are any because, as oldokie noted, they likely had brown rot and you don't want to let the disease stay there on the mummified fruit and hit next year's crop. I don't even throw fruit with brown rot on the compost pile---I put it straight into the trash.

Dawn

IF there are only a few fruit and they don't seem to have brown rot, I think I would leave them to see if they will ripen. Not all peaches ripen in July; some ripen in August. You can learn more about peaches at Stark Bros website. I just finished reading an email (with a link to a blog) from Stark's about peaches. They dealt with all you need to know. Wintertime pruning, fruit thinning, watering, dealing with brown rot and plum curculio. (Tiny white worms that live next to the pit and mess up the fruit.) We use Neem oil for both or we wouldn't get any peaches. I would link it but I deleted it as I knew what they talked about--except the names of those late maturing peaches. We are in the middle of peach harvest right now, and we have more issue with both brown rot and plum curculio than last year. I believe because it rained once a week until a month ago, making it difficult to spray. Like Dawn, we thin by hand but this year not strenuously enough because we've had two branches break from high in the tree where we couldn't easily reach. We don't try to compost our bad peaches either, but throw them onto a brush pile in the woods that we will burn in the fall.

Thanks, all. I'll thin some and leave some and see what happens.

Sandy

Peaches require a lot of water also to fully develope

My peaches begin to mature in mid-June in an average year, normally right about Father's Day. If the last frost is really early, like in 2012, they can mature in mid- to late-May because they bloom early and then no cold weather slows them down.

I need to plant some more varieties that bloom later and mature later so we can have fresh peaches all summer long, and not just in June and early July.

I have plans to plant a lot of fruit trees in the new back garden this fall, but I'm going to have to plant them in gopher cages because voles have been eating the roots of plants, randomly, in the back garden. They've eaten fig tree roots, fennel, lantana, squash, all the dahlias and daylilies, and now they're eating zinnia roots. I've had more vole trouble in that new back garden in the three or four months since we planted it than we've had in 15 years in the front garden.

Rather than fighting voles every year, I'll just plant fruit trees and berries in large gopher cages that will protect their roots until the roots grow outside the cages. I might build a raised bed or two lined completely with hardware cloth so I still can have flowers and a few veggies back there, but because of the voles, I've had to change my plans for how we'll use that area.

Busy1, That's so true and it is one reason I've never planted the later season varieties since I know I'll have to water them a lot. Most years (ha ha ha, except for 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2011, etc.) my peach trees make fruit just fine on the natural rainfall we get, but that's because they are earlier varieties that ripen before the real summer dry spell begins. After looking at my list of drought years, I guess I didn't have to water the peach trees a lot in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2007 and 2009.

Since Sandy bought a new place, there's no way to know if the previous owner gave the tree good care before she bought the place, and 2011 and 2012 would have been really brutal on a tree that wasn't being irrigated. I am wondering if it is just suffering the aftereffects of a couple of bad drought years.

Dawn

Dawn and all,

No need to worry about the peach tree anymore. Last night's storm took out the tree--by the roots. The fruit was starting to grow, of course!

More tree damage, and the pole barn was damaged. No power, as the Utility poles along the highway were snapped like toothpicks. Lots of cleanup work for OG&E. They were already busy as I drove out to the acreage this morning. All of Bixby was without power including businesses. Saw where a roof looked like it had just been "peeled" off on a nursing home in Bixby. Lots of damage here in NE OK, but it could have been lots worse.

Sandy

Sandy, Oh no, I just hate to hear that. I was wondering how you fared up there after I saw all the storm reports. It is just terrible that the great blessing of rain in this state always seems to come with the curse of strong wind, hail, flooding, etc. Why can't we just have nice gentle rain without all the storms and fury?

Our news early this morning said Bixby and the surrounding area may have had the worst damage from this round of storms.

I am glad it wasn't worse, but it sounds like it was plenty bad.

Dawn