tahir
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PeachesWe've not managed any leaf curl control yet, if we had we'd have had a great crop this year. Loads of fruit set and then the trees got mullered. Red Haven managed to ripen a few which we picked last week, fabulous. We tried some Rochester at F P Matthews in the summer hols, that was possibly the best peach I've ever eaten.
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Blue Peter
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Re: Peaches | tahir wrote: | | We've not managed any leaf curl control yet, if we had we'd have had a great crop this year. Loads of fruit set and then the trees got mullered. Red Haven managed to ripen a few which we picked last week, fabulous. We tried some Rochester at F P Matthews in the summer hols, that was possibly the best peach I've ever eaten. |
What leaf curl control are you planning?
Peter.
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tahir
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We're hopefully going to put some polytunnel frames up and keep the rain off over winter
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Blue Peter
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| tahir wrote: | | We're hopefully going to put some polytunnel frames up and keep the rain off over winter |
Does that mean that the disease resistant varieties aren't?
Peter.
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tahir
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Yup
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Millymollymandy
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What does mullered mean?
I have peach leaf curl on all my trees despite spraying with B. Mix. However leaf curl doesn't seem to have any effect on either the tree, the flowers or the fruit. They just drop the curly leaves and replace them.
My problem is scab, which leaves my fruit small and usually a hard bit on the spotty side. The other problem is drought (which is quite normal here in summer/autumn) so I have to water or irrigate or the fruit are smaller than golf balls and inedible.
Just eaten a load of small white peaches for my lunch - not as good as the one year I didn't have scab but not bad, and better than anything from the shops this year as they all keep going rotten before they ripen up! 
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tahir
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| Millymollymandy wrote: | What does mullered mean?
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I had trees that were completely defoliated, didn't look like they'd recover at all.
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tahir
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| Millymollymandy wrote: | | The other problem is drought (which is quite normal here in summer/autumn) so I have to water or irrigate or the fruit are smaller than golf balls and inedible. |
Do you mulch?
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Millymollymandy
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Yes/no, actually mulch is only of any use on my kind of soil (sandy and extremely free draining) in the early summer when there is still a bit of moisture left but once it's gone, it's gone and it's pretty hard to replace until the autumn rains (Oct/Nov), and mulch makes a barrier than rain or even hose pipe water can't easily get through. So by this stage I have moved any mulch out of the way in order for the hose pipe/seep hose to actually get to the soil!
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cab
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For the last two years my peach 'avalon pride' has avoided leaf curl, whereas all of the other peach trees I'm aware of growing locally have succumbed. Indeed last year and this the almond trees down the road from here came down with leaf curl too. The only other peach tree I know of that has not suffered has been another 'avalon pride' planted in a friends garden.
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Nick
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| Millymollymandy wrote: | | What does mullered mean? |
Covered with yoghurt.
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Kinnopio
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Cab, how does Avalon Pride compare taste-wise? I had a few white fleshed peaches off my parents tree and they were stunningly good (although up till now I've only ever had supermarket peaches so that might be why I thought they were so wonderful). I want to get a peach tree this year and am wondering whether to plump for Avalon Pride or whether to try a supposedly trickier to grow variety that I know should taste good?
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cab
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My tree is a youngster, so I've only had a handfull of peaches so far. Those we've had have been very tasty; as good as other fresh picked peaches I've had from trees in the UK.
Tahir said a while back that someone had planted loads of avalon pride but they'd still been wiped out with peach leaf curl. Can't remember who that was though. Hasn't been my experience here in Cambridge, but admittedly with my tree and a friends tree its a sample size of two. Thats as opposed to all of the other peach trees I know of here, all of which have had leaf curl.
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tahir
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It was Mark Diacono off On My Farm
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cab
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I suspect that the key thing here is that Avalon Pride is leaf curl resistant, not immune. If local conditions still favour a serious leaf curl problem it might still succumb. I've found that it has done better than the other varieties seem to in this parts though.
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Kinnopio
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Thanks for that, I'm just down the road in Huntingdon so pretty similar conditions. I think Avalon Pride is the way to go.
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cab
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Keep us informed how you get on. My tree is in North Cambridge, the other one is out in the fens. I'd be most curious to hear how you get on in Huntingdon.
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