Peaches help us make luscious breakfasts, juicy evening snacks, and heavenly desserts. Peaches are known as very healthy and rich fruit. They are fabulous for every age and make simply blissful baked desserts like pies or cobblers.
Adding on a peach tree in your garden area is a soulful gesture forever for every garden lover person. Watching a peach tree grow in your backyard is another level of happiness and contentment that only a true gardener will understand.
Growing a peach tree is a patient, lengthy process that will take years ahead. It’s almost a long journey to see peaches flourish in your garden, but it will also give you a patient and challenging task.
Being a big fan of tender, ripened, and fleshy peaches, I always wanted to try growing them in my backyard from the seed itself. Now, let’s know the whole process step by step and get excited to grow our peaches.
How to Grow Peach Tree?
Having thought about growing a peach tree in your orchard is a very fun-filled thing to act on. It’s quite an experiment to work on plant heredity, and the contentment of growing a tree from seed is simply outstanding. All you will require is a good sense of perseverance and a little luck.
You are free to select from the different varieties of peaches for this experimental journey. It is how you can avoid the problem of germination failure. You can never be sure to say that the tree you are nurturing will produce the same variety of peaches as you ate the one inside which you grabbed the seed you just planted.
There are chances like you can also grow better peaches or zero peaches. You can plant the tree, nurture it properly, and wait for them to produce the fruits.
These Pro Fruit Growers try out plant grafting to ensure their fruits are true to the taste and texture they expected. But all you can do is plant your tree from seed, enjoy the adventurous journey and wait for the fruits to grow, and the tree will treat you with fleshy and juicy peaches for several years.
STEP 1: Preparing Your Peach Seeds
Take one fresh and fleshy peach fruit, and take out the kernel.
Your Peach seed should be cleared and cleaned well to avoid future mold or mildew. Roughly rub the seed to remove the fruit flesh remaining in the pit areas. A toothbrush or scrubber can help you do this.
In a bowl, take 1 part of bleach with ten parts of water. Now dip the clean seed here. After this, please take out the seed from the bowl and let it dry at room temperature. You can use a fungicide to coat the seed pits for extra protection.
On the other hand, You can also try removing the peach pit kernel softly from its outer layer if you wish for speedy germination. Make gentle use of a nutcracker or hammer to crack away from the layer.
Take extra precautions to avoid injuring the inner kernel. It will give you a faster germination process, but only if you care not to damage the seed inside.
STEP 2: Germination of Peach Seeds
You may name it peach seed, peach stone, or pit. These kernels have a close resemblance to walnuts and are very easy to germinate.
It would help if you chose the fall times for planting peaches with great hope for them to survive well. The peach seed needs a great organic mixture of soil. Plant the seed around 3 to 4 inches deep and cover it with 1 or 2 inches of compost.
There is one more advanced process to this seed germination. You can keep the seed for germination in cold areas, primarily until early winters, like cold storage or a refrigerator. Soak the seed in water for 1 or 2 hours and then take it out and keep it in a moist plastic bag and keep this bag in your refrigerator. The peach seed thus requires cold treatment for good germination. Keeping this seed in a cold area works well if the temperature is between 35 to 42 degrees F.
You must keep the other things away from the bag as they tend to emit the ethylene gas. Fruits like Apples and Bananas might cause trouble in this.
The seed might also germinate between two to three weeks to two to three months. This time and duration differ from seed to seed. When you see the roots developing and tiny leaves on the upper side, it’s time to plant your sprout.
The seed germination process is as unsure and unexpected as getting a great result from grown peach trees to get yummy peaches for you.
Read More: How to Grow a Coconut Tree? Complete Guide
STEP 3: The Potting Process of the Peach Sprout
When your peach sprout has grown perfectly well, the next thing you will follow is potting the sprout. First of all, carefully remove the sprout from the plastic bag and place it in a container of sufficient size of around 12 inches in depth. Put the seed 1 inch deep using mosses, peat moss, sphagnum moss, and good sterilized potting soil. It would be best if you frequently watered the sprout.
STEP 4: Hardening Off Process of the Peach Seedling
When your seedling grows enough sets of real leaves, it is time for you to harden off the seedling tree after adjusting it to the outer atmosphere. After the last frost has gone, you can bring your plants out in a shaded place daily.
Initially, you can do this for 1 or 2 hours, then after, you can increase gradually by adding one hour each day depending on the fruit tree’s capacity to take it from the sun and the extreme temperature.
STEP 5: Let’s Plant The Peach Tree
Cultivating your peach tree is a happy thing to happen. As you have reached this phase from a tiny little seed, it gives your gardener’s soul a great sense of pleasure and satisfaction. At the same time, you need to be aware that there is a long way yet to go. Though for now, it is time to show your hard work.
Plant the tree in a full sun-shined place, as the peach tree is happier in a well-drained soil area and will thus grow and sustain with minimal gardening care. But, you must not shift the focus anywhere else.
First of all, dig a deep hole so that the taproot doesn’t get hurt or broken while planting in. It would be best to keep the roots moist but not very wet. It would be best to be sure about selecting the location so that it doesn’t get very windy.
Also Read: 9 Best Digging Shovel for Your Lawn
STEP 6: Care For the Peach Tree
Every tree requires mostly the same type of care except for varied ways that might differ sometimes. The most common is regular watering when rainfall is minimal. It would help if you exercised perfect pruning for the shaping, and branching would enhance the quality and quantity of the fruits you will harvest.
When you succeed in fruit thinning, it will also improve the production quality. Keep a regular check on the trees for any pests or disease signs. The widespread pest to be taken care of is Peachtree Borers. If you get any signals like that, you can get rid of them with systematic treatment as you would not want to let them get out of control.
They have got plant hardiness, mostly between 4 and 9. Due to the unknown nature of your plant, you might not be aware of this plant’s hardiness or chill hours, as they call it. So when you purchase a peach tree from outside, you must ask for or check for its chill hours.
They have plant hardiness zones between 4 through 9. It may affect your homegrown peach trees because of the unidentified qualities of your plant lineage. If you buy them, check the hardiness zone and chill hours.
STEP 7: Let’s Eat the Peaches
The most exciting way to eat your peaches, the fruits of your hard work and patience, is to make them raw and rough while you eat them. That is going to double your enchantment. Let the juicy peaches drip down its nectar down your chins and hands. All you need is tissues or napkins.
You May Also Read: How to Grow a Fig Tree From a Cutting in Water?
Conclusion
This guide must have helped you grow your peach trees. You can make unique jams, sauces, desserts, pies, tarts, and many other delicious treats with your peaches. The kids are going to be the happiest in such times.
Happy Peach-making to you.