That sounds good. I don't have a huge amount of experience with seedling
peach trees but I've tasted fruit from several over the years.
I would guess that if you grew a thousand seedlings from Elberta seeds,
maybe one would produce fruit as good or possibly better than the parent
tree. Dozens or maybe hundreds of them would produce fruit that is
pretty good. Only a few would be so bad that you wouldn't want to eat
them at all.
I'm glad you didn't get one of the duds. ;-)

Steve


Janice wrote:

Seedling from a self fertile (no near peach trees to cross with)
Elberta peach pit. Not a root stock.
Janice


On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 20:35:18 -0500, Steve wrote:


I would first question if seedling is the right word. Did it really
sprout from a seed or did it sprout up from the base of the old tree?
If it is a sprouted seed, the seed would have come from a good peach and
would probably produce fair to decent fruit. If it is a sprout from the
original tree, it's either the exact same variety again OR it is the
rootstock. Since rootstocks are not selected for their fruit, Sherwin is
right, getting good fruit from that would be unexpected.
One thing about peaches though, even a bad one isn't too bad. I would
rather eat fruit from an average peach seedling than from an average
apple seedling.

Steve (in the Adirondacks)

Sherwin Dubren wrote:

Hi Janice,
Is it possible that your original peach tree was grafted? If that
were the case, the seedling you have now is possibly from the rootstock
and not
the same variety as the original tree. If that is the case, you are
very
lucky that you got anything that tastes halfway decent.

Sherwin D.

Janice wrote:


On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 21:00:59 -0600, "Dwayne" wrote:



Hi Jon. I used to live in Ft Collins. I picked up two peach trees and put
them in my back yard. Everyone told me that we wouldn't get peaches (or any
sweet fruit other than apples on the East Slope) because of the weather. I
have always loved a challenge and gave them a chance. About one out of
every 3 years we got a lot of good fruit.

Peach trees get hurt two ways by cold weather. If the temp gets to -16 for
longer than 45 minutes, the fruit buds are killed. Then if that doesn't
happen, and during bloom it frosts, the tree wont produce. Be prepared to
protect them during the winter. I used plastic wrapped around poles stuck
in the ground, with an electric heater inside.

You can also get some Christmas lights (not the cool bulb type), and wrap
the trees in the lights. Then when you get a freeze/frost warning, turn on
the lights.

You can also try watering the ground around the tree before an expected
frost. Sometimes that helps. Someone said that after a frost, but before
the sun comes up, spray water on the frosted parts of the tree and melt the
frost before the sun has a chance to shine on it.

You might do some research and see if you can get anything else. If you do,
please share it with us. I now live in western KS (54 mi from the CO
border) and have planted some peach, pear, plum and sweet cherry trees here.
After that our primary concern it the bugs and borers mentioned by others.

Dwayne

I can add one that I forgot, sun scald. That was why I cut down the
parent of the tree in the front yard now. I pruned it too much, and a
lot of the branches were badly sun scalded, and I didn't think it
could possibly survive. Well, a year or so after I had the parent
tree cut down, a seedling peach tree came up and it was so sun scalded
on the trunk that it bent over to a near 45 degree angle before it
started growing upright again.

Normally, I'd have dug it out, but I've been unable to do much of
anything for some years now, and so it suffered, but amazingly enough,
the poor trunk that was nearly black where it was scalded, grew new
bark over the damaged areas over the years. The tree has been bearing
pretty decent sized peaches that while not quite as good as the
elberta parent tree, they're better than some named varieties they're
selling these days. I guess it's unusual to get a seedling tree that
volunteers to bear anything that's not small and hard and bitter.

Protect your tree trunks from scald. Some paint them with thinned
latex white paint to reflect the warm sun that causes the sap to rise
unseasonably early on the south or southwest side of the trunk and
then at night it's cold again, and the action splits the bark I guess.
I may be off on the way it works, but sun on the bark in winter/spring
causes it, so either paint it or wrap it to protect it, and watch
scaffold branches for sun scald too. might have to paint them too.
Talk to your extension agency or arborists, orchardists someone who
has knowledge to see what they recommend for your area.
Janice


"jon" wrote in message
e.com...


greetings all,

we just bought a house and the previous owner tells us that the 12'
tall tree in the front yard is a peach that usually manages to bear
tasty fruit. don't know the variety. i live in boulder, co (zone
6?). the temp fluctuates wildly in the winter. yesterday it was 60,
today we got 6 inches of snow and it's 20. like many other parts of
the country, we have been suffering through a drought the past couple
of years. two questions:

1) should i fertilize my peach tree now? if so, with what and how?
if not, when?

2) can anyone recommend another variety of fruit tree that tolerates
relatively dry conditions fairly well? i just hate to have to drench
thirsty plants in the desert in the summer.

thanks for the advice!

jon