The Pet Report

The trees are about 12 feet high, like single-stemmed cordons, from which grow out one- and two-year-old lateral shoots.

There is no doubt at all that it does not pay to disturb the roots of peaches regularly. Therefore, one must sow the land down to grass quite early, especially as this fruit seems to make the least demand (of any grown in this country), on the soil water. Peaches can undoubtedly be grown on the straw mulch system as advised for blackcurrants or in small gardens could just be mulched with sedge peat, say, as far as the branches spread.

This will undoubtedly mean pruning back into the two-year- old wood. The one-year-old shoots themselves will also be reduced by about half to an upward pointing bud. If the tree is properly mulched and the ground is in good heart it should throw out plenty of nice young shoots which in their turn will be pruned the following April. Each year, in April, the idea is to cut out the older hardwood so as to encourage the production. of plenty of young growths on which the fruits are borne. The centre of the bush will be kept open and the sides will be thinned out.

The fruits must be thinned out when they are the size of a little cobnut, leaving them at about 9 inches apart. Some people do a second thinning when the peaches are the size of walnuts. It is seldom necessary to thin when peaches are grown as bushes, except the removal of one of each of the twin fruits. Peaches should be picked very carefully with the whole hand and not with the thumb and finger. It is ready for gathering when it will come away from the short spur without any difficulty at all. One of the great advantages of growing peaches is that they are hardly attacked by any pests or diseases other than Leaf Curl.

Mr. Maclean never prunes in the dormant season, because if he does die-back occurs. Pruning is done just before flowering and during the next few weeks.

Wires are provided, spaced 18 inches apart, trained against the wall or fence 4 inches away. The young growths are tied to these wires in position. A good specimen would be one which has oneyear-old growths about a foot long tied to the wires every 4 or 5 inches, in the space allotted to it. It helps greatly if special attention is paid to the trees in the summer. On the length of fruiting wood one can leave three laterals: one right at the base, one half-way up and one somewhere near the tip. The other side shoots that tend to develop in the axils of the leaves are pinched out with the thumb and forefinger as they appear. Then when the tree is pruned in the winter, the branch can be cut back to just above the lowest lateral, which then takes the place of its ‘parent’ and is in fact tied up in its place.

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