Prunus persica Peaches and Nectarines

Planting position: Full sun. Ideal for regions with cold winters, hot summers and wind-protection. Spacing of 5m.
Requires regular watering, keeping the soil constantly moist especially during flowering period. Well-draining, compost-enriched loamy soil, generous layers of mulching and incorporates superphosphate to root level. Winter pruning after a vase-shaped framework has been established: the fruit is borne on the previous season’s new wood and these need a little cutting back to ± one third. Let the chubby flower buds guide you when cutting back, thus ensuring a good number is left behind and also thin out some of the new shoots. When the tree over-produce during the 1st two seasons, you will have to systematically remove some of the fruit, to eventually one per 15cm stem. Yellow clingstone peach trees bear towards the branches’ tips, so take care when pruning on these.
Propagate from seed or budding, but it is advisable to obtain trees from a reputable nursery.
Fertilising programme: spring applications of 250g-magnesium sulphate plus the feeding programme as for apricots.
Harvesting is done gently when the fruit is soft. Avoid bruising them by twisting the fruit off, or better yet cut them off the tree.
Pests, diseases and their cures: Fruit fly and Codling (or false) moth - spray the same as for apricots; Pernicious scale - winter spraying with lime sulphur; Leaf curl - spray with copper oxychloride and mineral oil when buds start swelling in spring.

The deciduous peach tree produces lovely fruits from spring to the beginning of autumn. Its sweet fruit has a velvety skin and is eaten off the tree, as a dessert fruit or used in jams, canned or dried form. Nectarines produce brighter coloured, smooth skinned and an almost tastier fruit of smaller size. Besides the fruit differences, nectarines and peaches are basically identical in their needs and fruit usage.