"FarmI" ask@itshall be given writes:
"John Savage" wrote in message
jzfredricks writes:
I've just moved homes and for the first time have a fruit tree - a
peach tree. I know very little about gardening, and I'm wondering if i
have to protect the fruit from insects, birds, bats etc?

The tree has flowered, and now has many small peaches.

I live in Brisbane, Australia, and it's winter here (not that it gets
cold, mind you).

It's most likely a flowering peach that you have. Enjoy it for its
blossom, the fruit will fall off as soon as they form.

The fruit on mine doesn't. The majority stays till they're ripe. They look
extremely unpalatable (small and green) but the flesh is devine - white,
fragrant, juicy. We discovered they were good to eat when my husband bit
into one some years back. I told him they were "flowering peaches" and not
for eating, but he convinced me they were good and after I tried one, I
couldn't believe I'd let them go to waste for all those years.

For 20 years I lived in a place with a large flowering peach. Each season
I'd watch the hard teeny weeny green fruit fall off and rot. Only now do
you disclose that I could have stewed them?? There is no dessert I like
more than stewed peaches, and getting every last morsel off a clingstone.

Because flowering peaches flower so early in the season, it's quite likely
that the fruit would have been naturally free of fruitfly, too, with no need
for any spraying regimen. Alas, I have now moved out of that place so it is
too late to carry out a taste test. I shall never forgive you, FarmI!!
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)