How To Thin Peaches: To improve fruit size and sweetness
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- Опубликовано: 6 июн 2019
- How to Thin Peaches
This week's gardening tip teaches you how and why you need to thin your peaches on your peach trees.
Thinning peaches is important it helps balance the weight load on your tree and also makes for larger and sweeter fruit. Thinning peaches on your peach tree is fairly simple to do but needs to be done early in the season.
Thinning peaches allows your peach tree to focus on growing larger, higher quality fruit. If you leave to many peaches on your tree you will end up with a bunch of small flavorless fruits. And a heavy fruit load can also easily damage the branches of your tree.
Learn how to thin peaches with today's gardening tip from Rick Stone.
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I planted my peach tree in 2020. It was about 6 foot and now it's 12 feet to top. Last year it had about 50 peaches and we had a storm that broke two major limbs off. This year it was full so i watched your video on thinning the tree so i did. After i had pulled 1,650 little peaches i stopped to see what will happen. I've never seen so many peaches on one tree.
I've got like 8 peach trees lining one side of my yard. They produce an absurd amount of peaches, but they're all barely bigger than a golf ball and inedible. I don't know anything about fruit trees or any sort of gardening so I assumed they were just the wrong type of tree.
If this works on them it'll be life-changing. haha
8 trees! Holy cow! If you get it to work next year you will be drowning in peaches!! It's too late in the year this year for it to help much, but if you thin next spring it will help a ton!
I took all the blooms and immature fruit off my first year tree except for one just to see what they were going to be like. This year, 2 years after planting, I thinned about 80 per cent and got peaches as big as a softball so sweet they made their own syrup. This black Illinois dirt can really grow peaches! I don't think most people realize how quickly peach trees will start producing.
Step 1 is to cry first.....but it has to be done.
No fr 🎯
Thank you for your video, yes thinning does seem wrong but if you have ever seen a beautiful tree badly broken up by not thinning them you would agree it's necessary!
So true!
I haven't done a great job of thinning the fruit on my peach trees and I usually get a lot of peaches that are almost too small to eat, and many of them are cast before they are ripe. So I won't feel bad about thinning them this year because I think it will increase my actual yield.
Yes it will help you have larger and tastier peaches!
This is our 1st year with a peach tree and we were so excited to see all the little fruit on it today! Thank you so much for this video!! So helpful!!
I have a peach tree for its 2nd year and ddnt know all those small things were peaches. Luckily I asked people in my gardening group and they said to thin it and now I’m watching your video. Thank you now I’ll continue watching.
Glad I could help.
Up until I watched this I was clueless concerning my peach tree and being late July in SE Texas with my tree being slightly larger then the one you're showing and yielding at least three times as many peaches I have got lots of picking to do! You answered all the questions I've had bouncing around in my head about this tree and you are now my go to man when it comes to any kind of plants or tree questions I may have. TY
This year is a huge peach year for some reason. So this week we thin the peaches. It is hard, but we want sweet juicy peaches come August. Thank you!
I stumbled across this video and am so glad I did! Thank you so much! I'm sorry to say I lost a branch off one of my trees earlier this year and I think this is why. I have since removed a lot of the peaches but next year I will know how to take even better care! Thanks for taking the time to educate me!
Glad it was helpful!
Great presentation! Clear, logical and easy to understand and follow.
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you so much for your excellent video. Last year we only had 3 small peaches and this year we have tons! I've already thinned quite a bit but will go back and thin some more, as you suggest. And you're right, it's painful.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge! I have read tons of articles and couldn't find anything about needing to thin the fruit. I assumed since apples needed thinning that my peaches would need the same.
glad we found this video.. we've already thinned ...on a similar sized , dwarf tree.. over 300 fruit.. after watching your vid.. I just went out and thinned ANOTHER 100 (50 cent sized) AT LEAST off this thing.. its mid July in SW IDAHO and after the thinning.. I STILL have over 100 fruit on the tree..I may need to get up in there and thin a few more but geez, I sure hope they get a LOT bigger!
Thanks, this is exactly what I needed.
Thanks for showing us the best way to thinning our peaches. I started my peaches 3 years ago and the plants were 2 years old. I am hoping 23 will be my first harvest.
That’s exactly what I was looking for. My peach looks just like yours ,many years old and the same size. New Bedford MA here. Thanks again
Glad I could help
So glad I saw this video.. planted my 1st peach tree last year and have been SO excited because I have hundreds of tiny peaches. Gonna hurt to "thin it" but now I will. Thanks for this video.. SO informative 👏 👍
I tried teaching my brother this, and he doesn’t get it. He said that bugs and animals will do the work.
However, I have a tree that I purchased recently and it already had a lot of blooms, so I didn’t even prune it. In about a month I will know exactly what peaches I will keep, and I’ll even remove the weaker branches. I will protect the keepers with either a net, or if I’m only keeping a few, I’ll slip a little fruit net pouch.
People should be glad that you are showing them this, and their feelings for the fruit should not interfere.
Thanks for the video
Thank you so much , i will stay in touch K Hovis Michigan.
I can't like this video enough. Thank you for sharing. You've answered all the questions I've had for a while.
Glad it was helpful!
So helpful and informative. Just inherited a tree with our new home. This is exactly what I needed to know. Brilliant 👏
Glad it was helpful!
Wow! I also have a Lot of fruit to thin. Now I know how to do it the right way. Thank you so much.
You are so welcome!
You just saved my tree's life! 😂 I'm going to give it one more year.
I had brought home the tree (years ago), planted it and got peaches the first year! I was so excited. Then the tree became an overgrown monster. I noticed only one part of the tree had beautiful flowers and the rest looked pathetic. I figured that maybe some of it had grown up from the root stock so I assumed that the part with the more beautiful flowers was what I should keep as the original tree. So now I will thin the fruit next year and see what happens. You're right ....it feels SO wrong to pick all those baby peaches off😖.
Thank you!
Soooo
Now I guess I'm going to have to pull off all the unripe peaches. Then what should I do to the tree and when? Thanks again 😊
This was SO helpful! Thank you!!!!
You are very welcome!!
Wonderfully informative video. Much appreciated.
Glad it was helpful!
Love it thank you. You made it so simple to understand.
Nice! Great video!
Very well stated with some excellent tips. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
Very informative , thank you !
So glad I found you, wish I had done so sooner, incredibly helpful! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Glad I can help!!
Very helpful. Thanks Rick
Glad it was helpful!
Wow! I can't thank you enough I've been looking and searching for a year for help on this thank you for sharing this help me so much and I love this page
Glad I could help.
Ugh.. lol I did it and it was so hard I think I cried 😪 I wanted to also say last year and the first year of the tree I only got about 5 peaches on the whole tree and the all had sap on them so I took all them off but one and that one was so good
Hey thank you for the info! I live with my in laws and they never had peach trees. I was trying to tie them up because the branches are so droopy! And they didn’t want any fruit removed but this info is so good thank you!
Glad I could help!
Very helpful video, thanks for the tips!!
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you sir. Very informative and right to the point!
Glad it was helpful!
I just moved to a house in Salt Lake City in the winter and just saw a tree in my yard producing fruit. Turns out they are peaches and just at quarter size so I guess I know what I'll be working on the next few days. Our tree is much taller though so not sure how high I'll be able to get. This was so helpful, thank you!
Glad I could help.
Best peaches I've EVER had were from my peach tree in Sandy, UT. I didn't do a thing to it. It was pre-internet days so the tree did it's thing. Just WOW. Sugary sweet and huge. Wish I had known about what to do. I can't imagine waht they'd be like. Enjoy!
2 hrs. and almost a 5 gallon bucket of peaches I'm done thinning my tree . I don't know what to expect but because of your video I now have a sense of relief and when I walk by the tree I know I helped it instead of wondering what should I do to help it....I just didn't know ...so again I sincerely TY !
Thank you for this. This is VERY helpful for my 2 peach trees
Glad it was helpful!
A friend just sent me this, and my peaches are definitely past the quarter stage but I’m hoping by thinning I can save the tree limbs being pulled down by the weight. Thanks for making and sharing this video!
You're welcome. Good luck
Very helpful...thanks!
You're welcome!
That was great man . Smart guy you are it wat perfect
Great information! My Babcock Peachtree will be the best ever next year from this information. Thank you- 5 stars.
Thank you so much! I have been wondering why my peaches are not growing. But you are right! It’s so emotionally draining to see how many peaches I have to remove! I feel so bad!
Yep, not my favorite job for sure, but it has to be done!!
Excellent work mate. I've just learnt something.
Glad to hear it!
Excellent video. Thanks for the help.
You're welcome!
Thank you for this great video
My pleasure!
Thank you very much for such a great video on thinning peaches. The details and whys and hows of thinning are really helpful. I am wondering if you have a detailed video on pruning peach trees?
Great tips, it is hard to toss those little peaches. TFS!
I know right!! One of the hardest jobs in gardening, but it HAS TO be done!! :)
Nicely explained , thanks.
Glad It was helpful!
Thank you
You're welcome
Never thinned our 4 year old peach tree and the limbs are sagging BIG time. Just went out there and thinned it out. Hope it comes back. Still have a LOT of fruit on the tree even after thinning.
We are having this issue this year. How did yours turn out?
Outstanding info. I cant wait till my tree (San Diego) produces.
I'm glad you enjoyed it!
God is smiling on me today. This video deserves a 5-star rating which contains a lot of helpful and amazing information for gardening beginners like me. Thank you ...thank you ... thank you for all your hard work. I also greatly appreciate all of you who have/will given/give this video a thumbs-up. Have a blessed day everyone+
Wow, thank you!
Real good FYI. Thanks
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you!
You're welcome!
I planted a peach tree in 2019. I got a few peaches in 2021, a couple more in 2022, and DOZENS in 2023. I wish I had seen this video before my beautiful peach tree had so many big peaches, which ultimately tore the tree apart in late August. It looks like a bomb went off. My poor peach tree has been split in several places by a huge fruit load.
I looked at so much info about planting and establishing the tree itself (terrible gardener, didn’t follow through with all of it 🙄) but luckily our tree seemed to kind of understand it needed to fend for itself. So last year, which was 3 years in, it really tried to give us promising peaches! Well, it never once occurred to me that you might want to NOT leave all of the 3,000,000,000 peaches it tried to give so I never looked into any additional peach parenting steps. A ton of them dropped off far too early but, because there were 50 times more of them than should have made it that far, the remaining guys did beautifully! (Not quite done, stay with me here)
So like 2 weeks later we were looking at a really nice harvest, to our inexperienced eyes, anyway. The peaches looked beautiful and as though they were nearly ready but they still had quite the death grip on the branches and were super firm so we felt relatively okay with the fact that we had to leave town the next day. We took off for a 6 day business trip the following morning. When we returned, EVERY. SINGLE. PEACH. was on the ground and was being enjoyed by every ant, bee, and wasp in the county. Every one. Clearly it was karma for my “oh, I am a natural expert grower of peaches, obviously!” level hubris.
Had I thought to do just a hair more research and learned about thinning the herd, those lovely peaches would likely have gotten much more nutrition a bit sooner and been ripe and ready to try a week BEFORE we left town rather than being 100% gifted to the stupid bugs. So yeah, we are approaching year 4 and I still have never tasted a peach from this poor tree.
This is my year, dammit!! (So a very winding and wordy thank you for this really succinct and helpful video!)
Glad I could help. Good luck this year!!
How is your peach tree doing? I see u made this comment a year ago, and I want to know how it turned out this year...😊
Thank you! This was very helpful information. It’s my first year with fruit on my peach tree. So sad to thin them out, but I know it’s necessary 😅
Glad I could help
I'm going out to do it right now, thank you!!!
You're welcome! Have fun!!
How is that possible? Shouldn't the peaches be ripening right now?
@@davidbrainerd1520I live in NY.
Thank you so much
You're welcome!
Thanks, I have a young peach tree with way too many blossoms and thin branches, guess it has to be done, last year the peaches were excellent
You are welcome!
Very informative 👍
Glad it was helpful!
Such an EXCELLENT tutorial! Thank you! One question…When you have a short branch that only allows one peach to remain, do you keep the peach closest to the main branch to provide better support?
When ever possible yes. But I also prioritize the healthiest looking peach first.
Thank you for the instruction! My tree has massive amounts of small branches with big leaves hiding the fruit from the sun. Should I remove tiny branches full of leaves? My tree is very healthy . I think I over fertilized . Should I just leave it for this year? The fruit load is about 1/4 of usual. Thanks from Southern CA. BTW, we are expecting hot/dry weather which is going to STRESS a tree with too much foliage. Thanks!!
Thank you for your video. My peaches wonts ripe, and there are holes in the fruits and leave, what solution you recommend?
Thanks so much for your great video! We've had 2 glorious years of fruit from our Frost Peach. Last year there were 30+ (first year) fruit and the Peaches were huge and sweet, the best peaches I've ever tasted. This year, I didn't take enough young peaches off. It was exciting getting 300 peaches but they're smaller and not flavorful. So there! I had to prove it to myself. Like you say, it's hard to take those little ones away, but next year I'm bucking up and doing it! Any thoughts on feeding and watering...?
If you are taking care of your soil (adding compost) then you shouldn't need to fertilize. Trees need about an inch of water a week. Ours is in our lawn so it gets what it needs most years. This year we are in a drought and have been asked to let our lawns die back a bit, so I'm watering the trees separately every 10 days or so.
You should do your thinning while it's budding not fruiting. This will cause more buds to grow giving you more fruit, by doing this you also allow "seperate" harvests (1st & 2nd & possibly a third late into the season). Just my 2 cents
@@StoneyAcresGardening thank you for this. We haven’t watering the peach tree regularly assuming it would get enough underground moisture from our Western Oregon soil and the tree is 5 years old so established. I also pruned way too much off this year so instead of 50-80 peaches we have about 12. *sigh* so much to learn.
Hiya thank you for your video. It has helped a newbie to peach trees a lot. The bunches of peaches on my tree are like a bunch of grapes. They are all so close together. Does this mean I am to only leave one peach and take the others away?
I know with my pair trees I remove some leaves that cover the pair more so for colouring and it doesn't affect much of anything else however is it wise to remove some leaves away from the fruit of the peach or doesn't it matter
All the things you're doing I'm also doing because of what I've read and heard. Nice to confirm I'm on the right track! I liked what you said about ignoring the rule if you see one being favored. I ran into that as well and I was heart broken on removing some.
Thinning is one of the hardest things to do in the garden. I cringe every time I do it. But I never regret it, it always makes it better.
I filmed this video in 2019, this year (2020) mother nature decided to do the thinning for me. We had a hard frost right when the tree was loaded with blossoms, so I only have a dozen fruit on the whole tree! :(
@@StoneyAcresGardening Bummer :(. 100% agree with the thinning. Every peach I pull i cringe. Then I remind myself of last year when had too many peaches. They were falling on the ground and the hornets were everywhere. This year is gonna be better!
@@StoneyAcresGardening I'm in Albuquerque. Same thing happened to me in 2020, but this year my tree is loaded. The peaches are quarter size now. I'll be thinning this weekend. And thanks for the very excellent video and great information
I wish I would have seen this video a month ago :( I had no idea. Now I have whole huge limbs I have to remove because they've broken from the weight of too many peaches on them. Plus I need help picking them all. They are falling in my yard and now I'm getting ants. Great info to have thank you for this video!
I’m in California and late. But I just heard about this practice and will thin now. Renting this property, so not skilled yet.
Just planted 4 of 2 varieties in January. They have started to fruit and I did remove a lot of small fruits because I felt like its really not established yet. Hoping for a great crop next year
Excellent video, production, and education. Thanks for your efforts. Is it ok to snip the peaches off w pruning shears?
Sure that is fine.
Thanks for the video. I have thinned in previous years, but probably not enough. So I will bite the bullet and do much more thinning this year. I have a problem with rose chafers and don't want to spray, so I cover them with a net for the 3-4 weeks that the chafers are active. I don't want to thin until after they are gone because even with covering, they do destroy some of the peaches. Any ideas for organic control besides netting the tree?
Thank you so much for the great video and tips for our peach tree. Now, what can be done with the fruit that has been "thinned" from the tree? Thank you in advance!
Really the only thing you can do is compost them. And they will be slow to compost.
I’m in Australia just going into winter. Found your video great. I seem to thin off 100s of Small fruit. A lot of the time they almost looking bunches of grapes. Do I take off all but one of the fruits? It’s a dwarf peach.
Thanks great info !!! Your a Peach !!!
Glad to help
Do you have any videos on leaf curl issues or spraying peach trees? I need to get more info on how to care for mine. Thank you.
I'm sorry Ben I don't right now.
Thank you so much I was wondering what rules I should follow when thinning my peach tree. I hope it's not too late I should have done that a month ago. I hope it won't do any damage your harm to it that I do it now. Thank you for the great info. I'm a new subscriber.
You are welcome!
My peach tree is about 13 years old now. Seemed to not have good peaches til was close to 10 years old. Theres a massive amount of peaches but are like the size of those blue handball or paddleball balls not quite sure what they are called but taste amazing where bite into them and half ur face is soaked. Last year was an odd year just after my partner had passed from cancer which we planted peach tree after a year of being together but anyway there was only one peach on the tree and as it grew it looked like bugs or something got to part of it so ended up just pulling it off and decided it would be a pruning year and thinned out so air and sunlight could penetrate through the tree. This year i have a ton of peaches but while a lot are golf ball sized i have a ton that are marble sized and alot of marble sized ones have fallen and are on ground. In past usually havest time will last over a month with few weeks between first pickings and than a second. Im wondering if it’s normal to see all those smaller marble sized ones now even though others are golfball sized and maybe smaller ones are the ones that normally pick towards the end of fruiting being done. Ive looked at tree last several years just to see the peaches but never noticed the dif in size. Maybe was just too busy with work and taking care of partner and over looked them. So i was just out and was pulling marbled sized ones off figuring there was some issue with them but am wondering if should just leave them. I get all the peaches i want and usually give out 8 12lb bags to people i do work for and then toward the end end up giving another 5 or so bags with about 8lbs in them to clients.
Sounds like a great tree!! And I'm very sorry for your loss.
Thank your for this info. I recently bought a house that has a plum tree on it and I didn't know if I should thin or not. Your video was so helpful. I assume plums will be the same as peaches.
Yes, you can thin plumbs the same way.
What type of fertilizer do you use for your peach tree. thank you for the excellent video
if your leaves arent dark green and shiny use calcium nitrate also a couple hand fulls 10-10-10 scattered around base of tree to drip line use pleanty of water
What kind of peach tree is best all around? Wanting to plant some this year
ty for your video....i have a year old peach tree...what do i do too make it grow beeter..
Make sure it gets plenty water and remove any fruit that sets for the first couple of years, that lets the tree focus on growing instead of fruit growth. Also get your proper shape established now while it is small. It is much easier to shape a peach tree while it is young.
Thank you for the information. Just what I needed. One question- does it matter whether the fruit is on the bottom, top, or side of the branch?
Not really, the spacing is most important
This is great and super helpful! Thank you for sharing your knowledge! I’ll definitely sub. One thing I was really trying hard to find somewhere but couldn’t … had to do with pollination. There are lots of great resources and videos about hand pollinating and such, but nowhere does it talk about or show, what a pollinated fruit flower (nectarine in my case) looks like. For example… if the flower is successfully pollinated, some references indicate that the petals will always die off about 24 hours after pollination… although I found this not to be the case at all. Even after hand pollinating, the flowers remained open and full for several days. It was a concern so I went back more than once and pollinated very well. My next question is… if pollination is successful, and the dropping of the flowers’ petals is occurring several days later … does the tree always hang onto the rest of the flower, (the stigma & the stamen all stay behind and only the petals fall off)… or.. does it drop only the petals and keep the rest only if pollinated successfully? If not pollinated.. does the tree drop the entire flower? If it holds onto the pistols and stamen etc. even if not pollinated, are there any key indicators that pollination is successful? If flowers have all shed their petals and pollination is assumed, I read that the base of the flower starts to swell. This has been tough to see. Is the only next indicator going to be the tiny little green thing that starts to show from the base of the flower and is connected to the stamen? I’m seeing those after about a week give or take since assumed pollination. Now I know most of this is probably pointless because nothing can be done at this point if pollination wasn’t successful. Perhaps, pollination is much easier to occur and occurs so much that just about every flower creates a fruit anyways and thus a bunch of thinning is required, year after year? So it would be out of the norm for a tree not to pollinate and especially with multiple hand pollinating attempts. I guess it’s me just wondering if there is really any clear way to know whether I’ve actually pollinated the flower that day, and to know it within enough time to be sure to attempt pollination again if it were necessary. Does any of that make sense?? Thank you so much. ***Update***. I haven’t posted this yet because I noticed yesterday that just about every single blossom appears to have been pollinated, so it seems there isn’t really any reason to delve so deeply into whether the flowers are or are not pollinated as it appears that pollination is much easier and more prolific than not. Just me overthinking it.
Hello, great video. I was wondering what I could do with the extra fruit? For example could I use them as compost?
Yes you could compost them. Be prepared for the pits to take a long time to break down.
I am trying to thin my espalier peach and there is quite a bit of new foliage that is shading the fruit. Should I cut some of the new, vigorous water sprouts back to increase the energy to the fruit?
what to do when you bye a tree with fruit on it. I just planted it a week or 2 ago and I hear the first year pull all the fruit! would u recommend that or no? my tree is a third the size of yours but it only has 5 to 10 peaches total on each tree.
I have a peach tree that i planted 8 or 9 years ago that isn't growing. It has put on peaches from the first year that I planted it, although one year I picked them all off trying to get it to grow and one year the frost got it. The label does not identify it as a dwarf. But it is bearly bigger than the day I planted it. I fertilize it a couple times a year. Any suggestions on how to get it to grow taller with longer limbs?
We have a pretty big tree (not dwarf) It is loaded with peaches this year. Do we still use the 6 inch spacing rule? Thanks for great video. It really helped a lot.
Yes, 6 inches is still the spacing.
Thank you. Now I know why all my peaches are beautiful red color yet the size of a golf ball 😩first year of peaches for us.
You're welcome!
I lost a peach branch this year because of weight load. It was so sad. It was a major fruit bearing branch too
Oh no!
Is it better to wait until after the "June drop" to thin the peaches? If thinned before will some of the peaches then fall off from the June drop?
It wasn't mentioned and I don't know if it happens everywhere but it does in my area.
My peach tree has a lot of fun kids what can I do about it
I have a Red Haven that is about 10 years old and I don't know if there is something wrong with it or if it's just the way Peach trees are but I can't even thin at the 6" apart rule. I have to take most of the fruit off all of the smaller branches and only keep fruit that is growing on the trunks of larger branches so that there is no weight load out on the ends of the branches or the branches always break, especially when we get our hurricane strength winds here in Utah either before, during or after a storm or before a storm that never comes. My tree just will not handle any load without branches breaking so I have to thin a lot out of my tree. Thinking of getting another tree just so after I thin I will get the fruit that I want between both trees. Seems like this is a newer problem because both my Grand parents and parents trees never had to be messed with or thinned and they didn't have branches break and the peaches all grew large and tasted fantastic but now they need lots of work or you don't get fruit and the trees crumble under their own weight.
hello from France,
Please tell me how I can preserve the peach stones that I have eaten in July until the month of March to plant them,
in water or in the freezer Please answer me.
What suggestion do you have, our peach tree has yielded perhaps one peach a year over the past five years. It is delicious. Since there is no fruit - I take thinning does not apply? This is in So California amidst the drought, what should I look for to get some peaches? Thanks!