How to prune a peach tree | Guide to pinching out a peach fan

In this video I show how I go about pinching out our fan trained peach trees, as the first - and perhaps the most important - step in their annual pruning and training. Peaches fruit exclusively on one year old wood so maintaining an established fan involves selecting shoots to grow this year that can be used to replace the current fruiting wood once the last peaches have been harvested. Thinning out excess shoots reduces vegetative growth, allows sunlight to get to the developing fruits, and makes subsequent pruning much easier.
For pruning later in the year see: • How to prune a peach f...

[@cardozotaipei]

This is the best info I've found. Thanks so much for posting!

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Thanks 🙂

[@nonamemcgee4842]

This is the best info I've found on doing a peach fan. Thanks so much for posting!

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Thank you :)

[@WthrLdy]

I am truly envious of people that LOVE fruits and veg.

[@keirwatson3570]

Please do a follow up later in the season. This kind of information is so difficult to come by. I’d love to learn more about your technique. e.g. Can we see the new growth tied in and any remedial pruning you do along the way. Thanks again.

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Thank you, I will endeavour to do that :) There is also a further video where I thinned out the young fruitlets and pinched out some more growth - kzbin.info/www/bejne/qV6yk52cnr-Ni8k

[@karenm8602]

Finally, this is what I have been looking for. A pruning video where you can actually see what it is being done and is neatly, logically explained. Usually it's just some guy chopping away at a tree at million miles an hour from a mile away saying this one year old wood, two year old wood, sub secondary scaffold shoots. Not giving you nearly information to actually recognise them all for yourself. Thank you so much. Brilliant!

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Thank you - so glad you enjoyed it :)

[@keirwatson3570]

Excellent explanation. This has helped me understand my own (two year old) peach fan much better. Thank you!

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

That's great :)

[@bendjaaf8723]

You are very near the secret of peach pruning. Very good job !

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Thank you! :)

[@davidcharnley1141]

You are, sir, a genius.

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Thank you! 😀

[@jan10-l]

Thank you so much for this video! It is the best explanation on peach tree espalier I've ever seen. I appreciate your work of making videos. Thanks from Phoenix, Arizona USA

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Thank you very much 🙂

[@chillymilly7005]

Thank you so much for taking the time to create this informative video!

[@suzyq6767]

This will be very helpful as I plan to fan my new peach and nectarine trees. Thank you.

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

That's great - good luck with your new trees! You can also find a few related videos on my channel - hand pollinating, thinning the fruitlets, cutting out the old wood and tying in the new :)

[@taryndawnsgarden8244]

This was really helpful, thanks - I have to prune our peach trees this spring and I am so nervous!

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Don't be nervous! :) Unless you go crazy on it, the tree will recover even if mistakes are made - I have made plenty myself! Are yours fan trained? If not, they will be pruned a little differently - you can't really follow this approach on peach bushes / standards as it would take too long. However, the same general principle applies - replacement pruning - except that instead of picking which shoots to leave, it will be a case of cutting out a portion of the old and unproductive wood - removing perhaps as much as one third of the older wood each year, leaving much of the one year old wood to fruit this year and making room for new shoots to develop to fruit next year.

[@dianamaliseva1957]

Very good video. Thank you. You explain your reasons for pruning just so very well. One actually learns from it. Thanks again.

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Thank you 🙂

[@aparnakumta2291]

I've been trying to look for a source of pruning my fruit tress, bit unsuccessful until now. Few videos I watched leave me more confused. Just stumbled upon your videos. Fantastic presentation, clear, precise and excellent videography as well. I've just subscribed to your channel.

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Thank you and welcome 🙂 Pruning can definitely get confusing! I always suggest starting by thinking about the growth and fruiting habits of a particular tree. Those will help clarify why different trees are pruned in quite different ways: so why peaches and sour cherries have to be treated differently from, say, apricots and sweet cherries, for example; or why tip bearing apples and pears must be trained and pruned differently from spur bearing sorts. There are many ways to go about pruning but appropriate methods will always be based on an understanding of two key points: where, when, and how fruit buds develop on the particular tree in question, and how a tree responds to pruning and training interventions. The former varies depending on the type of fruit and sometimes the variety, while the latter tends to be fairly similar for all. It is always worth keeping the objectives in mind when pruning - it shouldn’t be random cutting - it should always be trying to achieve something, whether that is developing the structure, maintaining health by removing damaged, dead, or diseased wood, resolving crossing branches or crowding, removing old and unproductive wood, encouraging renewal, and so on. Hope it helps and best of luck with your trees 🙂

[@aparnakumta2291]

@@jonnyskitchengarden thanks SO much for.the detailed and prompt response. It's exactly the kind of information I'm trying to find. Where and on which year wood do fruiting buds develop. And for that observation is the key.

[@g.christelbecker6349]

thank you for posting this informative video. i had no idea of the work involved growing a espalliered peach tree. thank you again, i have learned a lot.

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Glad it was useful 🙂 The peach does need more attention than most other fruits, but it’s worth it for that perfect fruit 😀

[@g.christelbecker6349]

@@jonnyskitchengarden i will certainly give it a go!

[@jsingh6872]

Finally, I figured it out. Well demonstrated Jonny. Awesome. It is Frigid here in Canada, but will try out this spring.

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Thanks. Hope it goes well 👍🙂

[@Whistlewalk]

Very interesting & informative. Thank you!

[@marlananda]

TY! Great information!!!

[@cooltemperategardeninginca3288]

Fantastic video with great explanations!

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Thank you 🙂

[@mirjamjohansson845]

This is the most helpful video I found so far on peach fan pruning! Thank you so much. I have one question: most others recommend keeping a reserve replacement side shoot half way up the fruiting branch instead of at the base right next to the main replacement shoot. Would you mind sharing your thoughts on which of these options are best and why?

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

That's an interesting question. I have not heard that advice before so I'm not sure why anyone would recommend keeping a replacement half way up the branch - perhaps they have something in mind that I have not previously considered 🤷‍♂️ In a larger space - which these peaches would like to fill - there would be more framework and shorter fruiting branches but even then I don't see why one would not keep the replacements as near to the base as possible. My reason for doing so is simple - it keeps the framework compact, and the framework serves no useful purpose except to spread out and support the fruiting wood. If you end up using a replacement shoot half way along the current fruiting wood, it just extends the unproductive framework (as that wood will never fruit again) and reduces the amount of fruiting wood for next year. Over time, the length of fruiting wood diminishes (because we have limited space and the fan won't just keep getting bigger and bigger) and then more dramatic cuts are needed to renew unproductive portions of the tree - keeping the replacement shoots close to the base minimises this.

[@mirjamjohansson845]

@@jonnyskitchengarden Ah, yes I'm with you! It is the reserve shoot that they're keeping half ways up. I wonder if this is so that it won't be in the way of the replacement shoot which they are keeping at the base? And maybe they just assume that in most cases one will be able to keep the replacement shoot at the base and prune off the reserve shoot at the end of summer. This is in the RHS "growing fruit" by Harry Baker. In "encyclopedia of organic gardening" it says to keep one shoot at the base and a replacement shoot 15cm up. But as you mention in one of your videos, most of these books give only brief instructions with not much reasoning behind the different choices. I've really found your videos an amazing complememnt to these text books. Thankyou!

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Interesting, and thanks for the references. They should be good sources, but I must confess that I am not convinced by those suggestions. Sometimes it can be desirable to keep both replacement shoots, if space permits, and I don't see why I would want one further along the branch than it has to be. Sometimes one of replacements on the neighbouring fruiting branches fails, gets damaged, or grows poorly (or too vigorously!), and that can leave an empty space in the fan. I try to get one to each side of the fruiting branch just in case I want both and after harvest, when the final pruning is done, I can cut out the old wood and decide which of the replacements to keep.

[@david.g.pulling]

Excellent video and simply explains what I've been doing wrong for the past 3 years. I've trained my peach and nectarine ito espalier rather than fan and have established a good framework but have had very few fruits each year. Watching your video makes me believe that I need to start re-training them into fans. Any advice would be appreciated.

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Interesting question! Espaliers with multiple tiers of horizontal limbs are well suited to apples and pears as they fruit on long lived spurs. For most other fruits a fan is preferred. It would be difficult with a peach to produce a good supply of the right sort of new wood each year to give plenty of fruit; the habit of peaches to only fruit on one year old wood is not so common - only shared amongst the usual orchard fruits by the sour cherry. The objective of any training scheme for a peach has to be to produce a good supply of the right sort of one year old fruiting wood. Not all one year old wood is equally productive - thin whippy branches tend to be more fruitful than thick vigorous branches; the fan shape helps in this regard by having many of the branches away from the vertical - vertical growth being markedly more vigorous than horizontal and more inclined to vegetative growth than the development of fruit buds. Retraining into a fan may not be entirely straight forward at this point but off the top of my head I'll try to give a few ideas that I would consider, though there are probably many ways you could go. I think I would at least cut out all but the bottom tier. I assume that the limbs of the first tier are no longer thin and flexible - if they were, you could bend them into the ideal place (bearing in mind that peach wood is not nearly so flexible as that of apple and pear and rather prone to splitting or breaking). I assume that the limbs are of a good length; this is unproductive wood now and too long to be useful for a peach fan (though it would be fine to keep them as they are for other fruits). So they probably need to be shortened. Depending on the available shoots you could shorten them by anything from, say, half of their length to stubs of some 4 to 8 inches; whatever is left is only there to support either the rest of the framework or fruitful side shoots so there is no point in retaining old wood that doesn't serve one of those purposes. See what develops from these - either from shoots that are currently present or from dormant buds (these are not always visible) - and take the best placed shoots to start the fan. A bit more extreme would be to effectively start from scratch, though with an already established tree regrowth can be quite quick. Depending on the height of the first tier you may be able to cut just below the limbs and rely on dormant buds to provide new side shoots; take one on each side and train at roughly 45 degrees (depending on the space available) in the usual way for starting a fan. If it were me, I might be tempted to try something unconventional, just to see how it goes... for example, you could keep the entirety of the bottom tier and develop new shoots from along the length of each limb, tying in those that are suitably placed and removing all others. Each year you would have to pick one or two new shoots near the base of these as replacements. The challenge would be in managing the vigour of the shoots - they would be more or less vertical so inclined to be overly vigorous; cutting any thick stems back to weaker side shoots as they develop might allow that to be controlled. It is not something I have seen done with peaches, but it might serve. It would be somewhat similar to the approach I am using for sweet cherries - adapting the UFO (Upright Fruiting Offshoots) method, a relatively modern approach to training that tries to manage the excessive vigour typical of cherry trees. With UFO cherries the upright shoots can be productive for some years before they are renewed, whereas you would need to renew the entire shoot each year for a peach. I really don't know how that would work out for a peach but if your horizontal limbs have lots of suitable shoots I would tempted to try it - it would at least be a fun experiment and, if after one or two seasons it isn't working out, you can still attempt to revert to a more conventional fan of some sort. I hope that helps. Always happy to answer any questions you might have (insofar as I am able!) :)

[@andywalt5205]

Great video. By far the best I've seen. Clear and easy to understand.At last I understand the principles of pruning a peach and nectarine tree. I have a young Apricot tree. Are they pruned the same way. Thanks very much. 👍

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Thanks 🙂 This sort of pruning is specifically for peaches/nectarines. Apricots are more closely related to plums and can be treated in the same way as plums.

[@andywalt5205]

Ok thanks Johnny. Do you grow Apricots or Plums?

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

I do. Homegrown apricots can be amazing - so different from the hard and insipid specimens often found in the shops! In the past, I have grown apricots as a fan or bush; we currently have two young trees being fan trained. Plums I have grown in various ways such as cordons, fans, bushes, and festoons; we currently have three being fan trained. Hopes yours goes well - if it’s your first homegrown apricot, you should be in for a treat when it starts to fruit 👍😋

[@andywalt5205]

I haven't done much with Plums ( maybe something for the future) I bought a Flavourcot Apricot Tree from Blackmoor last year. Looking forward to fruit from it maybe next year. Thanks again 👍

[@lynrichards9235]

Can I prune my nectarine in the same way as the peach? I was so confused about pruning before, but this video is fantastic, thank you.

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Yes, you can. Peaches and nectarines are almost identical, it's just a recessive trait that gives nectarines their smooth skin. Selection has produced varieties with some minor differences - for example, nectarines tend to be a little less hardy and the fruit is typically a little smaller and more firm fleshed than peaches - but in cultivation, they are treated in exactly the same way :)

[@annieme8394]

I am looking for fan shape ,cordon peaches training system for a while. This video is the best. Thanks for the detailed explanation and close up shots. May I ask how old this peach is and how many years you expect it to stay in production? Also, I would like to see a video of this tree with ripen peach hanging on the tree too

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

I don't remember exactly when we planted these, but more than ten years ago I think. Peaches are one of the shorter lived of the fruit trees - especially compared to apples and pears - a productive life of 15 to 20 years would be expected. Some may go longer, of course, whilst others may suffer from disease and need to be replaced sooner. I don't have a video with ripe fruit hanging, but I do have some of thinning the young fruitlets and tying in at the end of the season.

[@themayyo1]

This video is a few years old. But had a question. If you’re pinching out all the shoots, what’s providing all the energy for fruiting if there aren’t enough leaves?

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

That’s an excellent question and one might think it is too extreme, but in practice the shoots that are left develop very quickly and it really isn’t long before the tree is covered with leaves. Only the old fruiting wood is left bare - the framework branches, new shoots, and terminal shoots are enough. In a larger space there would be more framework than I have here. The trees are so vigorous that it is hard to keep growth under control in a small space like this.

[@williamswanson4305]

Thanks. I have a fairly young tree so a lot of the wood is fruiting.

[@nonamemcgee4842]

Do you know if a Santa Rosa plum should be fan trained or if other espalier methods are an option?

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Santa Rosa is a Japanese plum but the growth and fruiting habits are similar to the European plums and they can be treated in the same way; they are potentially quite vigorous (depending on rootstock). I would think a fan is by far the most suitable of the espalier methods and it is worth trying to avoid branches that are too vertical - laying them down helps control the vigour and encourage the development of flower buds. If you really don't want to fan train it, you could try a cordon, although it may not be especially productive and it may not appreciate the extensive pruning that cordons generally require.

[@nonamemcgee4842]

Thanks so much! I'll go with the fan.

[@jan10-l]

Sorry, I forgot to ask one question. What happens if you remove the green shoot from the very top of the fruiting branch? Why is it left on? Thank you 💚

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Good question! The top shoot is left to keep the branch happy - sap will continue to flow even though the rest of the the branch is bare. I have sometimes lost the top shoot but left one a few inches further down - it’s fine - but without a shoot near the end, the branch is likely to die back.

[@tiladios]

It looks pretty, but what happens when the trunk gets too wide and too close to the wall? Or this kind of fix will never going to get that wide?

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

I doubt it would get that large during its productive life. When planting, it’s a good idea to set the trunk a little bit away from, but leaning towards, the wall, so that there is plenty of space for it to develop. Peaches are not nearly so long lived as, for example, apples and pears. Typical productive life might be somewhere between ten and twenty years, though of course there are older trees that are still cropping. Also, in the same way that growth in tree height slows with age, so does the expansion of the trunk. In practice I can’t see it being a problem.

[@andywalt5205]

Hi Jonny. I have a peach tree growing in a pot in my greenhouse. Should I use this method of pruning? Would I need to pinch out new growing shoots after maybe 4-6 leaves as they wouldn't have the support of wires/canes like a fan or espalier tree? Many thanks Andrew

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

The answer is probably yes in theory but no in practice. The method I described is ideal for a peach fan. These have to be pruned/pinched out at this fine level of detail because there is simply not enough space to leave unnecessary shoots to grow. It is so easy for the fan to become overcrowded, then you get rubbish fruit because it is shaded and overgrown and poorly placed wood for next year. One could apply the same techniques to any other form but it is not usually done that way. The principles remain true, of course, for all peaches, nectarines, and, oddly, sour cherries, because appropriate pruning is always based on two things: the fruiting habits of the tree in question, and the response of a plant to a particular sort of pruning cut. For peaches grown as bushes, half standards, or some other more natural form, it would typically be too time consuming to treat each and every shoot on an individual level. Nonetheless, their pruning aims to achieve broadly the same goals - to remove old unproductive wood in favour of young fruiting wood - it is just that the cuts tend to be more substantial / coarse. It is much like the difference between pruning an apple cordon versus a big old apple tree - in practice one cannot go over the tree at the same level of detail as the cordon, even though the same principles apply. You didn't say how old your tree was. If it is a young tree then you may be engaged in formative pruning - this is broadly the same as one would do for an apple or pear tree, except that the peaches (or indeed any of the stone fruits) should not be pruned when dormant - only from bud break through summer. If you need any advice on formative pruning, let me know - happy to outline the process. Essentially, though, you would be looking to develop an initial framework of between three and five well spaced branches around the trunk at the desired head height. As with the fan, these framework or scaffold branches are only there to provide support for the fruiting wood. It should take at least three seasons to get the general structure in place. Pruning is different once established. I had peaches growing as bushes in our previous polytunnel - it was big enough to allow some good sized trees. I tended to go over them several times during the season, with the largest effort after the fruit had been taken. At that point one can remove lots of the old wood (along with some of the poorly placed new growth), cutting back to replacement shoots or buds (growth buds or triple buds), and thin out the replacement wood where overcrowded. One would typically look to remove up to around 1/3 of the growth at that point. I tended to produce a fairly sparse looking tree at that stage, as I was aware of just how much growth it would put on next spring - the pruning looked fairly barbaric, to be honest, but it was necessary for the health and productivity of the tree. Earlier in the season I would, as needed, remove some of the more vigorous young shoots, and especially anything growing vertically - there were always vertical shoots trying to grow through the roof! I tended to pinch out or cut back whenever it started to get out of hand - they can be pretty vigorous - and tried to maintain an open centre so cutting out anything that was causing crowding and poor airflow. If you have the time to remove some of the excess shoots in the spring it will reduce the inevitable overcrowding, but on good sized trees this is not the normal practice - instead whole branches with their side shoots will be pruned out later, cutting back to some replacement wood near their base. It has the same effect as all of the pinching out on the fan, just on a larger scale: old fruited wood and excess new growth is gone, leaving the framework branches and a good supply of nice young fruiting wood for next year. The most productive wood in my experience tends to be pretty thin and less vertical - you are quite right that this wood will not carry too much fruit, so pinching out or cutting back (depending when you do it) excessively long shoots is a good idea - though perhaps not so close as 4-6 leaves. Leave a good length of fruiting wood there because you can never be certain which flowers may be pollinated and where well placed fruits may develop. You will most likely need to thin the fruit to something the tree is able to physically support without breaking the fruiting wood as well as reducing it to a quantity that the tree can bring to full size - this should be done when the fruitlets are somewhere between the size of an almond and a walnut. You may occasionally be able to offer some ad hoc support to branches that otherwise might break, whether from stakes or strings tied to the framework branches. I hope that helps...

[@andywalt5205]

@@jonnyskitchengarden That's excellent Jonny. Very kind of you to give such a comprehensive and informative reply. That will really help me going into next year and the following seasons. At the moment the tree is in a half barrel size plastic container. I move it out of the greenhouse after its fruited because I'm having a lot of trouble with red spider mites! They've hammered it the last couple of years!! I have an overhead sprinkler system that dampens down the greenhouse every morning in hot weather but this doesn't seem to help that much. Ill have to try parasite mites or sprays next year. I bought the plant from a local garden centre 3 years ago. It grew well the first year. The second year it had a lot of blossom and quite a lot of fruit. I think I must have overfed or over watered it though because the fruit swelled quickly and the flesh separated from the stone. So they started rotting from the inside and a lot of woodlice and earwigs got inside!!! I didn't have hardly any blossom on it this spring. I'm not sure if that was down to my pruning or because spider mites had effected the new growth the previous summer! The scaffold/branch structure isn't too bad( but not great either) If I can get on top of the mite problem do you think it would be more successful to plant into the greenhouse soil? Many thanks again for your help. Regards Andrew

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Woodlice and earwigs do love peaches, unfortunately! The flesh separating from the stone is a normal characteristic of some varieties - peaches are often classified as either clingstones or freestones. Over watering could have caused the fruit to swell unduly, though, and that will always be more tricky in a pot. Lack of blossom this year could be due to pruning - if you weren't aware of the peculiarities of peaches it would be easy to remove the replacement wood by mistake and leave old wood that has already fruited and will never do so again, especially if you were shortening branches (you end up removing material from the extension growth that might have carried fruit). In the same way that if one is not aware that an apple is a tip bearer rather than a spur bearer, the typical sort of pruning is likely to remove many of next season's fruit buds. Alternatively, it could be due to carrying too much fruit last season and having little energy for producing fruit buds. It is a young tree so a large crop last season might have been a bit much for it. As for planting in the soil, that is always a tricky call. On the one hand it can make life a bit easier with respect to watering and feeding, obviously getting rid of the need to periodically repot. If space is limited though, the pot can help by restricting root volume and thus reducing vigour. It's not bad being able to move the tree about either. You have it in a good size pot so I think you could go either way. If you were going to get it in the ground I would do so soon, as trees really don't get properly established in the soil when they have become used to a pot - the roots are growing in the wrong way. Anyway, good luck with it! :)

[@andywalt5205]

@@jonnyskitchengarden Ah. That's something else I didn't know about. Clingstones and freestones!!! I'm not sure what variety it is. I bought it from a reputable local garden centre as a Nectarine!!!! A year later I thought....strange nectarine with fuzzy skin!!!! Lol Blimey there's always a lot to learn about in gardening!!! Also, I'll have to take care with my pruning this coming season. I suppose a band of tree grease before the fruit ripen might stop earwigs and woodlice. I find it amazing that there isn't a sign of woodlice on my fig trees until a fig starts to ripen then suddenly loads of the little blighters appear and start feasting!!!! Keep the videos coming in 2022 Jonny. They really do help a lot. Many thanks Andrew

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

A grease band is probably a good idea 👍

[@chillymilly7005]

I just planted a bare root peach tree next to a fence and I'm nervous to pull off all of the buds. Will the tree produce more leaves afterwards?

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Interesting... Where are you based? I assume southern hemisphere, otherwise it is an odd time to be planting bare root trees... but then you should not be touching any buds yet. In any event, only remove buds where you do not need shoots. Shoots are good for two purposes: to form part of the framework of the fan (the so-called framework or scaffold branches) or to produce fruit next year. If the shoot is not needed for either of those purposes, then it is best removed. On an established fan, that means the removal of the majority of young shoots. For the first year or two, you may be keeping more of them to develop the framework so that it covers the available space but after that it should be kept pretty bare. Fruiting wood only needs one or two shoots at the base - to replace the current fruiting wood (which will be cut out after harvest) - and the one at the end; the rest of the branch should remain bare. Happy to answer any questions you might have :)

[@chillymilly7005]

@@jonnyskitchengarden This is helpful information, thanks. I'm in coastal Canada zone 5b. We had frost just a few weeks ago and I planted the tree about a week ago, it seems to be doing okay so far.

[@vulk86]

This is brilliant! How far is it planted from the wall?

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

I just checked and the centre of the trunk is about 5 inches from the wall.

[@vulk86]

@@jonnyskitchengarden thx

[@vulk86]

@@jonnyskitchengarden I planted mine yesterday! I will try to make the same as yours!

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

That's great - best of luck with it! :)

[@mikebeswick3420]

Hi. Help. My outside peach tree has just developed leaf curl. On a big scale. Is it too late for treatment.

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

Sorry to hear that. It doesn’t help right now, but prevention is the best approach and that requires covering the tree from late autumn through winter to keep rain off (in such a way that pollinators can access when in flower). Grown under cover I don’t get any leaf curl even with old varieties. I no longer have an outdoor peach tree though when I did I picked a variety with some resistance so that helped. I have never treated leaf curl so only know what I have come across in general reading. The usual treatment used to be with copper based fungicides which are no longer available. One can find various recommendations for organic treatments with various ingredients such as baking soda, garlic, oregano oil, etc., claimed to be suitable either for preventative or curative purposes, but I don’t have any experience with these. You are likely to lose badly affected leaves, and indeed their removal might be advisable to help stop the spread. One occurrence is not likely to kill the tree - new leaves should be produced - but repeated leaf loss will weaken the tree; you may well lose the crop this season and the tree may not produce so much next year (one of my peaches has poor production this year which I am inclined to attribute primarily to large amounts of leaf loss due to a particularly bad infestation of red spider mite). For this season, I would remove affected leaves, apply a generous mulch of organic matter and keep well watered during dry spells to reduce stress. Ideally construct a cover of some sort to protect it in the future.

[@mikebeswick3420]

@@jonnyskitchengarden hi thanks. I think you buy copper sulphate which is probably the active ingredient. Since writing this to you I have had a good read. Your assessment is spot on. It’s a shame it is so blighted as there are lots of fruit on it. I S it worth spraying the new leaves that replace the infected ones. ?? Thanks for your response.

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

As far as I am aware, the new leaves are generally ok, particularly if you have removed the affected foliage. I wonder if it might be worth going over the fruit, removing any that have signs of problems (it can affect fruit as well as leaves) and reducing the crop at the same time - perhaps a reduced amount might be carried 🤷‍♂️

[@davidcharnley1141]

Inspired by you I have just bought a peach and a nectarine (St Julien A rootstock) to grow in a polytunnel. It is around 2 mtres high and there is 12 foot of growing space lengthwise. (Sorry for the mixed metaphor). I am proposing to grow them together as 2 half fans (45 degrees each). Do you think this would work? One possibility is to grow them in 2 X 80 litre pots which would reduce the height by around 1' 6". Would this leave enough height? I am not concerned about the size of the harvest, as long as there is eventually at least one fruit annually on each😊.

[@davidcharnley1141]

That should have read "90 degrees each" 🙄

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

That's great 😊 They can be pretty vigorous but then the pots should contain that a bit. What is the main reason for the pots - is it to stop the roots spreading too far? I think I used 100 litre pots in our old polytunnel and they were fine; I would think 80 litres would work. I dug holes and sank the pots, leaving just a few inches above ground. If you can do that, it would be preferable. It can be tricky getting good growth low down, so minimising any loss of height might be helpful. As for the training, we are used to a handful of common forms, but as long as one understands the growth and fruiting habits of the trees in question one can train to all sorts of shapes. You would not train a free standing tree to just one side, but so long as you deal with the offset weight of the branches I don't see that it would be too problematic. That is easiest if you keep the framework to a minimum - then most branches will only be one year old and light weight - and if you can tie into strong supporting wires or trellis, or perhaps provide some staking later if necessary. It is interesting! I haven't seen it done that way but I don't see why not. If you are feeling adventurous you could take one of the trees and try to bud the other onto it so that you can have both varieties on one tree. That doesn't always work so well if there is a mismatch in vigour - both varieties need to be similar in character so that you don't get all of the growth on one side. I have never tried that with peaches but I have successfully top worked an apple tree with multiple varieties :) One can also grow in a fairly narrow bush form in a polytunnel - I had one planted in a 4' wide central bed. It often spread a bit further, getting in the way of the paths on either side so was maybe taking up a rough circle of around 5' to 6' in diameter. It needed hard pruning a couple of times per year to keep it under control but it was immensely productive - far more fruit than the fans I have now, although I'm not sure what variety it was so it could have simply been a more productive sort. It depends on the size of your tunnel and how much space you want to give them - the fans can often fit in without really taking up much room.

[@davidcharnley1141]

@@jonnyskitchengarden Many thanks for your detailed reply. You seem to always be a true gentleman with your followers. I am a nerd so for me its the challenge rather than the harvest I am interested in, though I will judge myself by the harvest. The polytunnel is only 15’ X 10’. The height to the support bars (to which I am proposing to brace the structure forming the frame for some horizontal wires) is exactly 2 metres (6’6”). Under the tunnel the ground is mainly heavy clay and sandstone boulders. Even getting the short metal supports for the tunnel into the ground was an effort. There is currently a raised bed where the peaches are to go. The other side is a bench devoted to peppers and aubergines and also used to raise seedlings. Added to which I am in Lancashire. Not ideal, but what is life without a challenge😏? I could cut out the bottom of the pots to let the roots spread downwards, but the idea was that restricting the roots would also restrict the tree. (Is that true? I am a complete novice going through a second childhood). I also have a couple of 90 litre pots. Would that work slightly better in my situation? I could try to dig a hole for the pots as you suggested, but am slightly worried that, quite apart from the dangers to the roof, a geriatric wielding a pick-axe in a small plastic structure might attract the men in white coats. If I was younger the nerd in me would insist I take up your idea of ‘budding’ the two trees, starting by researching what this means exactly, but complete failure could leave me too few years to start again. (I have already bought a third tree to hedge against disaster which I will experiment pruning on. Maybe I should get a fourth one and have a go at budding. You have no idea how that thought gets my pulse racing😂. It is quite sad really). The grafts on the trees are 12 inches above ground. Could the trees be planted deeper than the existing soil height if I made sure the graft remained above the surface? I am sorry to be troubling you further, but if your videos weren’t so bl**dy inspiring I would just have some tomatoes growing by now………..

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

That sounds like very challenging soil conditions! Tomatoes would probably be a more sensible use of the space, but maybe not as much fun 😂 Yes, you are quite right about restricting the roots - I think either pot should be ok. I think I used 80 or 85 litres for the stone fruit around our fence, but I cut the bottom out of those and again they were buried deep. I don't think I would cut out the bottom in your situation - you don't need the roots running all through the tunnel. If you can bury even a little, that helps with the height. You are right to keep the graft union above ground but I would not plant the tree any deeper - that may encourage decay of the stem. You can use the third tree to try budding/grafting! You only take a small piece of material from the donor so you don't need a fourth for that :)

[@davidcharnley1141]

@@jonnyskitchengarden Once again, many, many thanks. I can now go forward with a bit more confidence.

[@mikebeswick3420]

Hi This is really helpful but unfortunately for me i have read it too late....my peach tree is a mess and im not sure what to do now...i wish i could show you a photo of it now for some advice but i wont let me do it>>>>

[@mikebeswick3420]

imay have to cut it right back and misss next year..so your winter pruning will remove all the old growth which bore fruit....

[@mikebeswick3420]

and so basically the buds you leave are the new branches for next year,,,,presumably you leave an excess in case of damage to the pnes you require.

[@mikebeswick3420]

are there any follow up videos to this please

[@jonnyskitchengarden]

I hope to make a follow up video on this in the next week or two. I don't do any winter pruning - it is all from spring to late summer, so as to minimise the chance of infection. That's the same with all of the stone fruits, really. Otherwise, your are quite correct. The old fruited wood can be cut out as soon as the crop is taken and the replacement wood tied in and, where necessary, thinned out. If you'd like to send a couple of pics to [e-mail] I would be happy to take a look at them, but in the meantime, here are some general suggestions: To take remedial action you would need to review which branches are to be retained as framework/scaffold branches. These serve no other purpose than to spread fruiting wood across the space so keep these to a minimum as they will not be otherwise productive. Once you have decided on those, you can tie in the fruiting wood that you want to keep - anything grown this year - and cut out everything that you don't need. If it isn't part of the framework and it is old wood or just fruited, then cut it out. If it's really overgrown, begin by removing all growth that is coming outwards from the wall as that is not useful, and similarly everything growing towards the wall, and then cut back anything that is too long for the space. That should tidy things up a little. Look at the base of anything growing from a framework branch. Pick one or two of the new (this year's growth) side shoots to keep and cut out everything above. For potential fruiting wood, where there is a choice, favour growth of only moderate vigour and remove anything that is too spindly such that it would not be able to support the crop or is overly vigorous. The more vigorous branches tend not to be very productive. Go over the tree in stages, taking a step back every now and then to review progress and the overall shape. You can, of course, cut hard back, but if you need to remove a large proportion of the growth, it may be necessary to do so over the course of a couple of seasons and large cuts are, naturally, more prone to infection as they take longer to heal.

[@mikebeswick3420]

@@jonnyskitchengarden thanks ill send a few pics