"Purple Peach" wrote in message
...

Last year I was intrigued by the letters about growing peche de vigne in
the UK.
I have an eight year old, self sown tree grown from some peaches I
brought home from the Charente Maritime in France.
It is thriving in the open at the far end of my Oxfordshire garden which
is four hundred feet above sea level and is quite exposed though
protected by some tall trees to the north of my garden.

Last autumn it fruited for the first time and I harvested forty kilos of
fruit or 60 lbs. They were of excellent quality.
To my sheer delight the tree survived our brutal winter without any sign
whatsoever of frost damage. To my even greater delight, I have, from mid
September 2010 onwards, harvested a mammoth crop of over 60 kilos/85
lbs. of splendid fruit.

I hope that this might be of interest and encouragement to many
gardeners as I am totally convinced that this tree is completely hardy.
It needs no wall protection and it certainly does not require any 'hand
pollination'. Just visit the south of France and buy some purple peche
de vigne in the local market!
The tree is now quite tall, the height of a standard apple tree, and
indeed, to harvest the fruit overhanging my neighbour's garden, I had to
cut off an entire branch.

Last winter I planted a row of peach kernels in the shelter of the house
and they also survived the harsh winter to produce new, maiden trees
which, in spite of this summer's drought, are now 12-14 inches high.

Just how long my good fortune will last is anybodies guess. We have
also been lucky that the wasps have not shown any interest in this
fruit.
It is customary in the wine areas of France, to plant either rose bushes
or peche de vigne trees at the front of each row of vines. This is
entirely practical as both the rose and the peach will indicate the
presence of fungal infections which are a sign to the fruit grower that
it is time for them to spray their vines before they too, are affected.

Goodness me! I was just reading an article today about growing
peaches/apricots/nectarines by planting kernels.

I've always done that with peaches from our own flowering peach tree because
although it's supposed to be an ornamental, we've discovered that the nasty
green looking peaches it produces are actually superb eating - white
fleshed, frangrantly peachey flavoured and glorious in the mouth. Not only
are they superb eating, but the quality of the fruit on all the seedling
plants seems to be just as good as any of the parents. Our findings about
the seedling plants is in accord with what the article says - ie no plrobs
with planting kernels.

BTW, we've never had problems growing peaches ina c old climate - it gets to
as low as -10C here and the peaches never seem to show any ill effects.