" writes:
Speaking of peaches....or rather, typing of peaches.....
I have a dwarf peach tree, about 3 years old. It made fruit last year, but
it was tasteless and mealy.

The only description I can attach to "mealy" is very dry inside. Can't
say I've ever encountered such in peaches. I have with imported mangoes,
like a dry sponge, not a drop of juice. If it happened in a stonefruit,
I'd say it must have been growing in parched conditions without adequate
watering. You don't have it in a pot, do you? Or maybe the first crop off
a young tree is generally of rubbishy quality anyway? I really don't know,
because all of ours are gnarled old stalwarts!

How do you care for them to make the wonderful juicy peachs I desire?

Mostly neglect here, I confess. :-( I think good watering is important.
I prune them each year, but the soil is quite good and they get a handful
of blood and bone, something like complete citrus food once a year (okay,
we don't even think to do it that often!), and cow/horse manure.

I have nulched with compost and am giving small feedings of granualr
citrus/avocado food (haven't seen any peah food)

Sounds perfect. I think stonefruit do need to experience cold winters,
so do you get at least a few heavy frosts in Winter?

I'm sure the flavour of peaches (and nectarines) is genetic; if the fruit
turns out to be tasteless you can either (1) pick the fruit as it starts
to soften and stew it in sugar + water, or (2) dig the tree out and plant
another, or (3) keep it as a rootstock and get someone to graft sticks of
a better variety of peach onto it. No matter how tasteless a stonefruit
is, it *always* comes up trumps when stewed and served with ice cream or
custard. That's probably your best bet.
--
John Savage (news reply email invalid; keep news replies in newsgroup)