Of peachtrees as windbreaks, sunscreens and climbing racks.

Peach trees grow easily for me, they're very drought tolerant, grow quickly and bear fruit in three years.
I started with three varieties in my garden and must have 50 now. I guess if i wanted i could have 5000 pits to plant out this year. But most just fall off for wildlife, they're not very sugary this year and had so many fruit that lots of branches broke. I shaked a few and they fell, but still there was too much weight on them and they broke. Ok with that too.

Because they're so drought tolerant and fast growing i use them in a line facing south as a wind break. Less wind saves so much watering. I planted them quite closely, one tree every 3 feet. A bigger one, a smaller one, a bigger one and tried to grow the tall ones taller and the smaller ones wider.

They shade out nicely as well. Not a hard shade, dappled light. I planted some plumtrees to the north of them which i hardly watered except through serious drought. In three years they became as big as a human adult. I thinned out the peach trees in front, chopping and dropping, feeding the plum trees. There is enough place to plant other trees in the peach forest. Apple trees and pear trees will go in, maybe a cherry tree.

Finally ringing the bark leaves a beautiful dead structure for climbers to colonize. Beans and what have you, maybe hops or a kiwi vine.

I hope somebody can use this information to do something similar or maybe add information that i overlooked.

Thank you for sharing a practical way to stack so many functions!

I have a small lot and inadvertently “planted” peach trees after including the pits from my neighbors trees in my compost/worm bin. More than 10 have grown into healthy trees. The most established tree produced a few delicious peaches this year.
Due to space constraints of my small lot, I will dig up all but 2 trees and give away the rest.

I wanted to include a tip that I learned from a separate post about managing peach leaf curl and provide an update on how it’s working on my peach trees.

The Post suggested pushing a bit of copper pipe in the ground (the piece I inserted was about the size of my finger) and sprinkling raw eggs shells around the tree.

My peach trees have not had any sign of leaf curl in the last 2 years since I added the piece of copper pipe and periodically sprinkle eggshells.

My neighbor’s tree, from which the pits came, continues to struggle with peach with leaf curl.

I’m posting this to say how grateful I am to the current and prior “Permies Post-ers” for sharing experiences that help gardens and gardeners thrive.

Thank you