Growing peaches
One of the nicest jobs right now, and a good excuse to get out of the bitter, cold winds, is to pollinate the peaches, using a small, soft brush, imitating a bee.
You don’t have to wait too long to get peaches off a peach tree, as these photos will show.
Spring must be coming – the peaches are in bloom
You do not need a greenhouse either, though it is useful because if you can keep the branches dry in winter and spring your tree will avoid peach leaf curl. It also protects the flowers from frost and it will help early ripening.
A good reason to grow peach is that few things are better than a peach, ripened on the tree. The rock hard things you buy to ripen at home are no comparison.
Peach flowers are produced on shoots that grow the previous year so the aim is to cut out old wood and tie in new wood each summer, that will crop the following year. Peaches are usually trained as a fan shape against a wall but you can grow them as a bush or tree as well. the important thing is never to prune them in winter because then wounds can get infected with silver leaf fungus spores. It is best to prune them only when they are in leaf. Oh, and hand pollinate the flowers because they usually bloom when there are no bees about.
You will also need to thin out the small fruits when they are the size of hazelnuts, but that comes later.
Plant your peach in a sunny spot and, if the soil is very acid, add some lime.
The peach trees last March, just after planting, with the supports in place
By July the tree is growing well but there is a job to do…
Then the tough bit, cutting away 80% of what you bought, to encourage low branching and a fan shape – done in July last year
But new shoots will grow and the next spring (in fact today) there will be flowers and, with care, fruit, just 18 months after planting
This variety is ‘Peregrine’ which is the most common. There may be better varieties but, when picked from the tree, perfectly ripe, and you have shaken out the earwigs, they are delicious – the peaches not the earwigs!
The Biking Gardener 
my dad had a peach tree in his garden in eye my grandmother grew it from a stone . I remember he used to as he called it tickle it to pollinate .I can still recall those juicy sweet peachs it used to be loaded such a treat as a child . one of my happy childhood memories