Last edited on November 29, 2025. View history
Peach
How to sow peach: Transplant bare-root plant
Sun requirement for peach: Plant in Full Sun
The peach tree is a deciduous tree native to Northwest China that produces stone, or drupe, fruits. It belongs to the genus Prunus which includes the cherry, apricot, almond, and plum. The peach is classified with the almond in the subgenus Amygdalus because their stones are corrugated rather than smooth. Peaches and nectarines are the same species - nectarines have a recessive gene that makes their skin smooth rather than fuzzy. Cultivated peaches are divided into two groups: clingstones and freestones, depending on whether the flesh sticks to the stone or not. Peaches can have white or yellow fuzzy skin. Yellow peaches usually have an acidic tang coupled with sweetness. White peaches are very sweet with little acidity. Most cultivars require 500 hours of chilling around 0 to 10 °C during the winter, and hot temperatures in the summer to ripen fruit. Some varieties are self-pollinating, while others require pollination by a peach tree of another variety with the same bloom period within 50 feet. Peaches should be thinned to 7-12cm apart when fruit are 2-3cm in diameter to increase mature fruit size. Standard and dwarf rootstocks are available. Dwarf trees can grow to 3 meters, standard to 4.5 meters. Depending on the size chosen, the tree will bear fruit within 2-4 years of planting.
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For peach, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 7°C and a shortest growing cycle of 240 days at its best temperature, about 4680 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your peach will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
Only plantings by members who have set their locations are shown.
by corvi,
As far as I can tell, no nurseries in British Columbia (or the rest of Canada) currently sell the peach variety actually developed and adapted for this area. Local nurseries all seem to import peach trees from big American distributors, who don't offer it. Smaller American nur…
peaches
by maco,
Ok, I'm late on posting this because I didn't think about it at the time, but remember how I planted 4 fruit trees and a nut tree in fall 2014? Well, they're not supposed to bear fruit for 2-4 years depending on variety. So I was surprised to see that this year, the peach *actually bl…
peaches
by maco,
Today I transplanted the cabbage and onion seedlings outside and planted seeds for: arugula, garlic (well, cloves, not seeds–forced in the fridge), mesclun salad mix, kale, cauliflower, and …
cabbages
onions
arugula
garlic
kale
cauliflowers
beets
apples
peaches
almonds
plums
There are no seeds available to trade on Growstuff right now.
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Prunus persica (L.)Batsch
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Rosidae Rosales Rosaceae |
|---|---|
| Killing temperature | growth: -5 °C, rest: -5 °C |
| Life form | shrub, tree |
| Life span | perennial |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | deep (>>150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | medium, light |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | short day (<12 hours), neutral day (12-14 hours), long day (>14 hours) |
Resources outside Growstuff.
goumi berry
Photos
Alpinefolk harvested 10, weighing 3.5 kg.