My Peaches Will Not Get Bigger or Ripen

Few homegrown treats can compare to a plump, perfectly ripe peach from your own tree. But a bountiful and well-ripened harvest doesn't come automatically. Peaches may not grow as large or ripen as quickly as expected for a few reasons. Proper fruit thinning techniques and attention to growth conditions can help pinpoint the specific source of your peach tree problems.

Plant peach trees in fertile soil in a location that will protect them from frost damage. Avoid growing peaches in areas where temperatures drop below minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit or frost shows up after mid-April. Remove weeds regularly from a growing peach tree to ensure that they do not steal vital nutrients and moisture away from the tree. Peach trees need soil with plenty of drainage and airflow and a pH between 6.0 and 7.0.

Thinning is an essential step in growing healthy, vigorous peach trees that can sustain their load of fruit. The process will multiply the size and quality of fruit. Remove excess fruit early in the season, when they are dime-sized. Space peaches eight inches apart on limbs. Thinning will not change the weight of your ultimate harvest but will make significantly larger fruit. It solves the problem of overloaded peach branches, which often drop fruit before they are ripe.

Some peach varieties take longer to ripen than others. Many are expected in early summer, but others don't ripen until August or September. Clingstone peaches, which tend to be early ripeners, are often smaller than freestone varieties. Keep in mind that some parts of the tree will ripen sooner than others, with the inside branches ripening five to 10 days after the outside parts. You can judge a peach's ripeness by its round shape and slight softness. In traditional peaches, ripening skin exposed to the sun turns red while the unexposed parts turn yellow. Some new all-red commercial varieties will go completely red at full ripeness.

Peaches thrive off sunlight and need enough of it to ripen fully and gain proper color. To encourage adequate exposure and boost the ripening process, orient orchards north to south. With more than 100 peach varieties, some may respond better to some environments than others. If rootstock is not healthy or the peach variety does not perform well in your area, peach quality could be compromised. Another possible cause of poor quality fruit is the dying off of the scion, or upper part of a tree graft. If the rootstock takes over the scion, this may diminish both fruit quality and tree size.