Peach
Prunus persica
Early-blossoming stone fruit — garlic and basil help keep leaf-curl and aphids down.
Spacing & sowing
- Plant spacing
- 11 ft 6 in
- In-row spacing
- 9 ft 10 in
- Between rows
- 14 ft 9 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
Calendar (from your frost dates)
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 110 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- 45 days before the first fall frost
Growing
- Type
- Fruit · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Watering
- Moderate
- Soil
- Deep, fertile, well-drained
- Feeding
- A potassium-rich feed in spring, with a mulch of manure.
- USDA zones
- 5a–9b
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- March
- Pruning
- Prune in spring only, and thin the fruit once it reaches marble size.
- Overwintering
- Shelter it from rain from January through May, and cover it against frost.
Through the year
- Mar–Mar Flowering
- Mar–Apr Bud Break
- Apr–Aug Fruit Set
- Aug–Sep Harvest
- Sep–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
Harvest
- When
- July–September; under glass or on a warm wall in the UK, midsummer onward. Trees crop in 2–4 years. Each fruit is perfect for only a few days.
- What to look for
- The ground color (the base skin color between any red blush) turns from green to creamy yellow — red blush alone means sun, not ripeness. Rich aroma, flesh yielding to a gentle press along the suture and near the stalk, and the fruit comes away with a slight twist. Taste the first candidates.
- How to harvest
- Cup the whole fruit in your palm and lift with a gentle twist — never press with fingertips, which bruise instantly. Lay in a single layer, shoulder-down, in a padded tray.
- How often
- Every day or two through the 2–3 week ripening window per tree; fruits ripen from the top and sunny side downward and inward.
- Storing the crop
- Fully ripe: fridge, eaten within 2–4 days (serve at room temperature). Firm-ripe fruit softens and gains aroma — but not sugar — in a paper bag on the counter for 1–3 days. Never refrigerate underripe peaches (they go mealy). Excess: freeze in halves or slices, bottle, or make jam.
Companions
Garlic, Chives, Tansy, Comfrey
Pests & problems
- Aphids Small sap-sucking insects — greenfly, blackfly — that cluster on soft new growth and excrete sticky honeydew. Squash by hand, hose off with water, and encourage ladybirds and lacewings.
- Spider mites Red spider mite
- Brown rot Fruit rots brown on the tree with buff rings of spores, then mummifies. Remove all affected and mummified fruit promptly, on and under the tree.
- Peach leaf curl Red, blistered, curled leaves on peaches and nectarines in spring, from a rain-splashed fungus. Shelter trees from winter rain and remove affected leaves as they appear.
Garden allies
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Big-eyed bug Geocoris spp.
A stubby 3 mm bug with enormous wrap-around eyes, working the soil surface and the low foliage for aphids, mites, thrips and insect eggs. It is the main natural check on chinch bugs in a lawn and it is killed outright by insecticide.
- Green lacewing Chrysoperla carnea
Its bristly larvae — "aphid lions" — impale aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and mite colonies, eating hundreds a week. Adults feed on nectar and pollen from small open flowers and overwinter in hollow stems left standing.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) Coccinellidae
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
- Minute pirate bug Orius spp.
A pinhead-sized true bug that is the best natural check on thrips, and happily spears aphids, mites, and insect eggs too. It needs pollen when prey is scarce, so keep something flowering nearby.
- Aphid midge Aphidoletes aphidimyzaHunts Aphids
A tiny midge whose orange maggots paralyze aphids and drink them dry, twenty or more each. Sold as a greenhouse biological control and resident outdoors wherever there are small nectar flowers and an unsprayed aphid colony to find.
- Assassin bug ReduviidaeHunts Aphids
A patient ambusher with a curved beak it drives into whatever it catches — caterpillars, beetles, bugs, and the occasional bee, so count it a generalist rather than a specialist. It will jab a careless finger too, so admire it and leave it be.
- Damsel bug NabidaeHunts Aphids
A slender, mantis-armed bug that grabs aphids, small caterpillars, and thrips in low crops and meadowy edges. Leave a strip of unmown grasses and flowers for it to overwinter in.
- Dragonflies & damselflies OdonataHunts Aphids
Aerial hunters that take mosquitoes, midges and small flies on the wing all day, and whose larvae spend a year or more clearing the same insects from the water. A pond with planted margins and no fish is the way to have them.
- Garden birds PasseriformesHunts Aphids
Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.
- Hoverfly SyrphidaeHunts Aphids
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Parasitic wasps Braconidae & TrichogrammaHunts Aphids
Tiny, stingless wasps that lay eggs in or on caterpillars, aphids, and moth eggs — the white cocoons riding a hornworm are their calling card, so leave that caterpillar be. Umbel flowers with shallow nectar keep the adults fuelled.
- Praying mantis MantidaeHunts Aphids
A sit-and-wait ambusher that snatches caterpillars, beetles, and anything else that wanders close — friend and foe alike, so count it a mixed blessing. Tall, structured plantings give it perches and egg-case anchors.
- Predatory mites Phytoseiulus & AmblyseiusHunts Spider mites
Fast orange mites that hunt spider mites egg-by-egg, and cousins that clear thrips and fungus-gnat larvae. Sold as a biological control for greenhouses; outdoors they follow humidity — mist and mulch, don’t dust with sulfur.
- Rove beetle StaphylinidaeHunts Spider mites
Slim, quick beetles with short wing cases that hunt in soil and litter, taking root-fly eggs and larvae, fungus-gnat larvae, and mites. Mulch and undisturbed ground keep them resident year-round.
- Soldier beetle CantharidaeHunts Aphids
Soft-winged beetles seen mating on flower heads in high summer; adults and larvae both take aphids and soft grubs. Open composite flowers are their landing pads and hunting grounds.
- Spiders AraneaeHunts Aphids
Webs, ambushes, and night patrols make spiders the garden’s steadiest generalist predators, taking whatever flies or crawls past. Mulch, ground cover, and undisturbed corners keep the population dense.
Companion planting
Good neighbors
Did you know?
Peaches and almonds are close kin; an almond is essentially a peach bred for its seed.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com