Peach tree: Sowing, planting and harvest calendar

Give your peach tree a warm, sunny, sheltered position, avoiding hollows where spring frost collects: its flowers open early. Allow enough space for the variety, rootstock and training shape you have chosen. If you plan to train a fan, install the supporting wires before planting. Plant a bare-root tree while dormant, from autumn to early spring, when the ground is neither frozen nor waterlogged. A container-grown tree allows more flexibility, but avoid hot, dry weather.

Water the root ball before removing the pot. Make a hole wide enough to accommodate the roots, but only deep enough to retain the original planting level. Keep the root collar at soil level and the graft union above it. Spread the roots without bending them back, then refill with the excavated soil and firm gently. Fertile, well-drained soil suits peaches; base any soil improvements on the actual conditions.

Water thoroughly to settle soil around the roots. Add a stake if needed, using a flexible tie. Spread mulch around the tree while leaving the trunk clear, and monitor moisture through the first few growing seasons. For container growing, select a compact variety and a suitably large pot with drainage holes.

Prune your peach tree in spring or summer, choosing dry weather. Avoid winter pruning: wounds on stone fruit trees are then more vulnerable to infections such as silver leaf and bacterial canker. For an established free-standing tree, do most of the pruning after harvesting, while it is still summer. A fan-trained peach also needs shoot selection in spring. Match the work to the shape of your tree rather than using the same pruning date for every peach.

Peaches develop mainly on shoots that grew during the previous year. Keep healthy, well-positioned young shoots to carry the next crop. After fruiting, gradually replace some of the shoots that have carried peaches by cutting back to a suitable young replacement shoot. Do not remove every branch without fruit: some of these shoots will provide the fruiting wood you need next year.

Remove dead or damaged wood and shoots that cross or crowd the centre. Use clean, sharp secateurs and make tidy cuts. Naturally compact trees may only need a few small adjustments. Aim to let light into the canopy while maintaining a balance between the permanent framework and the younger shoots that will replace older fruiting growth.

Harvest peaches when they are genuinely ripe, usually in summer, with timing varying by variety and climate. Fruit on one tree does not all ripen together. Check regularly for colour, fragrance and flesh that yields gently near the stalk. Red skin alone is not enough: both colour and texture differ between varieties.

Cup a peach in your palm rather than squeezing it with your fingertips, then lift gently. A ripe fruit should come away easily. If it resists and still feels hard, leave it on the tree instead of pulling at the branch. Do not shake fruit onto the ground, as impacts bruise the delicate flesh.

Set peaches in a shallow container without piling them up, then keep them shaded. Sort out damaged fruit for prompt use if it is still sound enough to eat, and discard rotten fruit. Peaches taste best soon after picking and have a short storage life. A slightly firm picked fruit may soften indoors, but this does not replace good ripening on the tree. If you have a sound surplus, process it promptly into stewed fruit or freeze pieces after removing the stones.