How To Thin Peaches: To improve fruit size and sweetness

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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[@MrCOBRA1313]

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.

[@crystaltate2114]

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!!

[@amykoehn2441]

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!

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Glad it was helpful!

[@patsfan13]

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

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Glad I could help

[@spaveevo]

Step 1 is to cry first.....but it has to be done.

[@sourceenergy1122]

No fr 🎯

[@nomorecensoringme]

Wow! I also have a Lot of fruit to thin. Now I know how to do it the right way. Thank you so much.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

You are so welcome!

[@MrCOBRA1313]

I have pulled off over 2,200 little small peaches off my one tree and it's still full. That seems like a lot of peaches to me.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Yeah that's a lot!!

[@elliotwilliams9497]

Thank you for this. This is VERY helpful for my 2 peach trees

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Glad it was helpful!

[@kimberlyreeves-parker2519]

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...?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

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.

[@RicksPhatPharm-vw2lb]

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

[@kimberlyreeves-parker2519]

@@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.

[@Eric19401]

Wonderfully informative video. Much appreciated.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Glad it was helpful!

[@pradeeprathee8059]

Nicely explained , thanks.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Glad It was helpful!

[@dorothypowers5503]

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?

[@clifton4566]

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

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

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!

[@EDU-wv2zh]

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.

[@robertfrisby3201]

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.

[@davidkrick1277]

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?

[@LynnetteMartin-k7s]

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?

[@karenwaller5255]

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.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Yes, you can thin plumbs the same way.

[@ferguson_kristy]

Do you only thin once or should you go back and thin a 2nd time?

[@frankdavidson9675]

what i do is take off every other bloom if its still loaded do it again what you have left should be about 6-8 inch apart

[@valeriemiller7171]

This is great! Can you thin peaches later in the season? I didn’t realize I was supposed to do this and my peaches are not doing well now!

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

They won't respond as well thinning later in the season, But thinning now will help reduce the weight load on the tree and will help the existing fruit grow bigger and sweeter. Just not as big and sweet as they would have been if you had done it sooner.

[@housecarl1114]

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.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Yes it will help you have larger and tastier peaches!

[@johnthroop2092]

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!

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

So true!

[@LoriBauer-f6b]

Hi & Thx for your video. I purchased a Julyprince peach tree from Home Depot as it looked nice and healthy and planted it in March 2023 here on Long Island, NY. To my surprise, I have about 100-150 tiny peaches on the 3.5-4' tree and not sure if I should take them all off or just some as you show in the video. So far, I took most off (75?) as you show and was very painful. Secondly, do I prune the tree this year with an open center or do I wait until next year? I have about 3 main branches which go outwardly and one going up. If so, when? I grew up with 2 trees as a kid but there is really no one to ask around here and I'm completely determined to make this work! Helpt!

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

For a first year tree, you should pull all of the fruit off! I'm sorry I know that stinks be it is better for the tree. Wait to prune until late winter while the tree is dormant.

[@LoriBauer-f6b]

@@StoneyAcresGardening yes, that does stink but I will do it. Thanks so much for responding. :)

[@susieczellar4580]

I just removed burlap that I used to protect my two lil trees from a very cold winter. Both have bunches of blossoms & the lil sprouts of leaves. This is their first year to have blossoms since planting seeds. Is it still a good time to thin the blossoms?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

You can thin the blossoms or wait till the fruit sets and the thin the fruit. That's my preference.

[@TrevorLSeal]

Are peaches better on new growth branches or older branches? Does it matter? Do I need to trim branches yearly?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Peaches bare on two year old branches, so we prune to optimize the amount of last year's growth left on the tree. And yes you should prune every year.

[@michaelbradford4444]

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

[@lenrak5716]

Do you also remove young peaches that have any kind of blemish such as those small sap-looking spots?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Yes and problem fruit are the first to go.

[@frankdavidson9675]

just remember when you thin you are trading quanity for quailty what you have left will be larger and less stress on the limbs

[@abdfakhour7561]

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.

[@toddrhodes2105]

My peach tree has hundreds of peaches. I have steaks all around the tree to prop it up. Didn't realize you had to thin. They are the size of golf balls now. Is it to late to thin?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

It's never too late to thin. You will miss some of the benefits of early thinning, but if you can save branches and stress on the tree then do it.

[@glennycarroll]

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.

[@LisaDilbone]

I presume the 6 inch rule applies to my dwarf pixie? Just got it this year. Hundreds of teeny tiny peaches forming. But my branches are still so short, so that means most of my peach babies will be removed?!

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

For a first year tree I would remove 100% of the fruit. It needs to focus on root growth and getting established, not on growing fruit. This is a slightly controversial subject that some will disagree with, but I've always been taught it will help the overall health of the tree to give it that first year off.

[@saintmichael1874]

Can we plant the peaches we thinned?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

No, for a couple of reasons. The seeds aren't mature at that stage, and second, most peach trees are grafted hybrids so a seed likely won't give you the same quality fruit.

[@samanthab5006]

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!

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Glad I could help.

[@ritajandj777]

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!

[@mitchgreen2249]

Great presentation! Clear, logical and easy to understand and follow.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Glad it was helpful!

[@sharonillenye8036]

yes this hurts me. first time my peach has peaches on it and I have already pulled maybe 500 off and I am still not done. but now a chipmunk is also coming around

[@carolandmattwilliamson8758]

It is almost time for me to thin my peach tree. I have pinkish curly leaves on my tree? What should I do about that?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

do you possibly have aphids?

[@carolandmattwilliamson8758]

@ourstoneyacres I looked for aphids, but didn't see any... Also, last year some of my fruit had hard, brown areas on the skin...

[@sandymorley8365]

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?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

When ever possible yes. But I also prioritize the healthiest looking peach first.

[@RobertPWills]

I have a peach tree in its second year and this year I got five fruit. Two looks already ripe and they're golf ball sized. I just didn't have a lot of blossoms on it. I've used Job sticks for it and water regularly. What am I doing wrong??

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Boy I don't think you are doing anything wrong. I didn't get any fruit until my 3 year on my new tree. In fact if I were to give you any advice it would be remove that fruit this year. Let the tree focus on growing branches and roots this year. Next year you could keep a few fruit on the tree, maybe a dozen. But you won't really start getting big crops until year 4. It takes some time for them to get established.

[@billbohobo3633]

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.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Glad I could help.

[@triz5634]

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.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Sounds like a great tree!! And I'm very sorry for your loss.

[@yt551217]

Excellent video, production, and education. Thanks for your efforts. Is it ok to snip the peaches off w pruning shears?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Sure that is fine.

[@llopez5212]

What if the peaches are bigger than a quarter? Is it too late to thin?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

It's never too late to thin, if for no other reason than to take excess weight off the tree. The mature fruit size might not benefit as much but it is still important that your tree is not overloaded with fruit.

[@valeriehamme8893]

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 😊

[@VickiBjolley7244]

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.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Yes, 6 inches is still the spacing.

[@peachtreehikaru]

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!

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Yep, not my favorite job for sure, but it has to be done!!

[@charlenegomez8385]

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?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Not really, the spacing is most important

[@shirleyupvall9360]

How often do you fertilize?

[@michaelyaary3860]

have a contender peach in a container, with a lot of double fruits, looks like one flower that turned into 2 almost fused peaches. do i remove the double or try to separate them?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

You will want to remove the double fruits, they won't develop correctly.

[@josorr]

If you would just get to the point and stop repeating yourself, you could have finished in 5 minutes.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Thanks for the input. I filmed this several years ago. I hope I have gotten better since then!

[@benduecker9650]

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.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

I'm sorry Ben I don't right now.

[@garyschmelzer]

What type of fertilizer do you use for your peach tree. thank you for the excellent video

[@frankdavidson9675]

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

[@wla2msp]

What if the peaches are not spread out along the branches? The branch is small and there are 3/4 peaches at the end of the branch and that’s it? What should I do

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

If it is a small branch it won't be able to support many fruit, and if you leave many at the end of the branch it will likely break and you will lose them anyway. I know it hurts, but you need to thin.

[@johnanderson1650]

Great tip… I’m a first time peach grower. My trees are about 3 yrs. when and how do you prune to shape trees?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Pruning is normally done in late winter, just before the trees break dormancy. I have a video on pruning if you search my channel.

[@kenhovis2171]

Thank you so much , i will stay in touch K Hovis Michigan.

[@BradleyLivestreams]

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.

[@luckymomshomestead]

We are having this issue this year. How did yours turn out?

[@mariamorris1807]

Thank you so much for this video. Do you do the same with mandarine oranges?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

I'm sorry I can't answer that. I live in a cold weather climate so we can't grow oranges so I have no idea.

[@denisekelley2292]

I have a miniature Pix Zee peach tree; would I thin it the same way? It is loaded with tiny peaches.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Yes, you don't want too much weight on a small tree.

[@uchok3051]

can I do this when the fruits buds have newly formed in spring?I feel like there's going to be too much load on my tiny tree...and the branches are growing mostly upwards

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Yes you can. How old is the tree? In it's first 2 or 3 years you should remove all of the fruit so the tree can focus on growing.

[@uchok3051]

@@StoneyAcresGardening 😪😪😪so I have to remove all??tree is 2-3yrs old

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

@@uchok3051 if it is that old then you should be able to leave some fruit on the tree next year.

[@jenmorricone4014]

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!!

[@garrettspivey9163]

I bought a home recently with a big mature peach tree and it is loaded with tiny fruit now in April. Definitely going to be thinning in the next week or so. Is there anything that can be done with the immature fruit that’s removed, other than composting it?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

No not really. If you are going to compost them, I would suggest breaking them up some how so that they decompose quicker.

[@bullishpaulmccarthy3228]

Can I thin the blossoms first so more energy is put into thinned fruit earlier?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Yes but be sure to wait until you are sure they have been pollinated.

[@humblepie8638]

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!

[@miketaylor3408]

I've been thinning my multiple peach and nectarine trees for over a decade. I try to thin before they get bigger than my pinky fingernail - they pop right off with a half twist or perpendicular moving pinch. If they get bigger like in this video, you have to twist them a full 1-2+ turns which gets old really quick if you're thinning 200-400 per tree (and maybe injured from repetitive motion). I thin again 2 months later because I have never ever overthinned the first time or even the second. I still have to prop up the branches. I dare you to overthin.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Good tip! Thanks for sharing

[@soniarahman2193]

I am in a high desert area in idaho, how do I know if I’m watering my peach tree enough (or too much)? Any tips. Mine is just three years old and had tons if blooms this year for the first time. So excited to get some fruit (and should thin it down to about 20-30 peaches I’m thinking)

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

They need about an inch of water every 10 days. And a good deep soak by a drip system would be the best way do do it. Good Luck!

[@dianehorton6921]

So helpful and informative. Just inherited a tree with our new home. This is exactly what I needed to know. Brilliant 👏

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Glad it was helpful!

[@karenosmon4882]

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!

[@chandrapersaud2817]

Interesting. Make sense why supermarkets rarely has fat juicy peaches . Supply and demand . Where can I buy a good peach plant . What do you recommend. Thanks

[@mgs721]

Hey Rick. I'm just entering my first year with a peach tree that looks almost exactly like yours in this video. I've been thinning out the double and triple and sometimes quadruple peaches that have started growing as I understand they will not end up being good fruit. I now want to thin the singles, but as you said, it's painful to "waste" all that fruit. Is there anything "productive" you can do with the thinned fruit? I've just been dropping them at the base of the tree hoping that they'll eventually serve as fertilizer. I might just be attracting rodents though. Any suggestions? Are they viable seeds that can grow into peach trees? Thank you!

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Most peach trees these days are grown from grafting not seeds. In order to be viable you would need to let the peach grow to maturity and then use the fully developed pit. You could compost the thinned peaches, but beyond that I don't really think there is a use for them.

[@mgs721]

@@StoneyAcresGardening Bummer. Thanks for the reply.

[@rowbyrow]

Last year I used my unripe peaches to make umeboshi vinegar, which in Japan is made from plums, and is a wonderful ingredient in salad dressing. It's a bit of a process, but not tricky, and satisfying to make something delicious out of the fruit.

[@stephenlipira5556]

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!

[@jessicanewburn3717]

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.

[@Thebeanskin08]

My tree this year gave me sooo much then before I literaly wanted to cry pruning then I had about a bucket of wasted blessings :(

[@sixstrings1063]

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.

[@tinalawlor4434]

I’m in California and late. But I just heard about this practice and will thin now. Renting this property, so not skilled yet.

[@hanielfarrash7555]

Thank you for your video. My peaches wonts ripe, and there are holes in the fruits and leave, what solution you recommend?

[@johnadey3696]

I would start by removing the fruit on the branch tips as they pull the branch down more.

[@jeridsumners5995]

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.

[@AzgyrlNone]

Drat, I thinned mine but looks like not enough ! So back to thinking more peaches, they are loaded

[@THEStepmonster3217]

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!)

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Glad I could help. Good luck this year!!

[@irisrowe7063]

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...😊

[@JoanCrain]

Do you spray for peach borers? If so, what do you use? I also have a problem with earwigs. Do you?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

I do not, so far I have been able to handle them by hand. I've only ever had one and I killed him with a nail. Earwigs are kinda hard to spry for as they are so good at hiding. Try a trap filled with corn oil and a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce at the base of the tree.

[@abdfakhour7561]

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.

[@noulie1251]

Hello, great video. I was wondering what I could do with the extra fruit? For example could I use them as compost?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Yes you could compost them. Be prepared for the pits to take a long time to break down.

[@RosieYang-y1m]

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 😅

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Glad I could help

[@Prpldy15]

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.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

You are welcome!

[@kenkelly552]

anything beneficial from the thinned peaches taken off the tree?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Not that I know of. You could crush them up a bit and add them to your compost bin, but beyond that I'm not aware of any uses.

[@kenkelly552]

Thank you so much!

[@boogersuz]

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.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

You're welcome!

[@t.m.grover-miller1871]

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!

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Really the only thing you can do is compost them. And they will be slow to compost.

[@robertpilat1685]

Thanks great info !!! Your a Peach !!!

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Glad to help

[@jocraig1222]

So glad I found you, wish I had done so sooner, incredibly helpful! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Glad I can help!!

[@willholmau]

My 4 year old tree is loaded as well. I have noticed that there are a lot of what i call " twin" fruit, that is 2 fruit from 1 flower. Do i pinch off one of them or remove both ?, still allowing for the 6 inch rule of course. By the way , i'm in Australia and it's spring now (october) and this is by far the heaviest load i've ever seen on a fruit tree.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Yes, thin one of the doubles if you can, or if the spacing allows remove them both and let some others develope instead. Be careful not to leave too much fruit on such a young tree. I would thin pretty heavy so that the tree can still get plenty of growth this year.

[@Kaiotic783]

I can't like this video enough. Thank you for sharing. You've answered all the questions I've had for a while.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Glad it was helpful!

[@billjones5178]

Do u ever prop limbs up to prevent fruit load from breaking limbs off?

[@karmakit6804]

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!

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

You're welcome. Good luck

[@jeremymillican5037]

What kind of peach tree is best all around? Wanting to plant some this year

[@llatchford]

I don’t thin my trees because between the squirrels and birds the peaches get knocked down all spring up to now (June 22). If I thinned my baby peaches, by the time late July rolls around (when my early peaches ripen), I wouldn’t have any peaches at all. The tree is over 14 feet high so too big for netting. It’s not ideal, but that’s life in the garden some times. 🌳🌳🌳🍑

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Makes sense!

[@marrburnz7257]

Ho leeee crap. This could've easily fit into five minutes, you just repeated the same two facts for almost 10 minutes, along with the world record for ums. Tl;dw: when peaches are between dime and quarter size, thin to roughly 1 every 6 inches along a branch, adjust for peaches obviously favored by the tree. Remove by twisting up along the branch, so as not to remove bark.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Thanks for the input. I filmed this several years ago. I hope I have gotten better since then!

[@noorwahabsidiqi7539]

Greetings from Afghanistan. Thank you for the useful video. I am gonna follow your instructions next spring. Sir, the leaves of my peach trees get yellowish and kind of curl after some times and blossoms don't grow as they have to. What do you recommend spraying, when and how? (please tell me the composition of the medicine as it might be problematic to find your medicines here). Thanks in advance.

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Sounds more like it might need fertilizer or iron. But I know nothing about the climate or soil conditions in Afghanistan. You would be much better off finding a local expert to help you.

[@noorwahabsidiqi7539]

Thank you sir!

[@huntaddict1]

What do you do with the tiny peaches that have been thinned?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Normally I just toss them. But they could also be added to a compost pile, they would just take some time to breakdown.

[@huntaddict1]

@@StoneyAcresGardening Perfect, thank you!

[@howardoller443]

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.

[@billbohobo3633]

Ok so I cannot seem to get any further up w my ladder. WhT do I do about the ones that all the way up there?

[@StoneyAcresGardening]

Taller ladder??