Peach Harvest

When we moved into our house a few years ago, we found out we had a peach tree. The first year, we got a few hundred rotten worm ridden tiny fruits. That year I pruned it and the following season we got none. The next year, we got a few, but they were still very worm eaten. Then the next year, I used an oil on them to keep the bugs off them. We got a bunch, but they were all small, and still pretty buggy. A golf-ball-sized one with only one worm was a good one! The next year we had a baby and I didn't have time to deal with them. This year I fertilized and oiled and we started out with hundreds of tiny peaches on the tree. By late summer though, most had rotted on the tree and fallen off. I'm guessing the early cold and rain caused the rot. We did get a few that made it though and they had some good size. Still, even though I oiled, I got the bugs in most, but I did get about 5 or 6 nice billiard-ball sized fruits, and they tasted very good. NEXT year, I will try thinning out the middle of the tree, fertilizing twice during the growing season, culling a lot of the fruit early and spraying the tree more often. (I use a non-chemical insecticide oil.)