Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Peaches in zone 4 and more
There you are eating a ripe juicy peach you plucked from your backyard! Or front yard. Say it can’t be done? Well, it can! Peaches in Minnesota. Peaches in Wisconsin.
I’m going to tell you a little story. I was bragging to some folks years back about the wonderful Honeycrisp apples I had from a property I lived on years ago when this woman says, Oh, Alice has peaches! Really? Sure enough, out comes Alice with photos of the most outstanding peach tree just loaded with the juicy fruit! I grilled Alice with what type of peach tree it was and how long it had been there. She didn’t know! Darn it! I also asked Alice if she mulched them. Nope! She does nothing. I considered learning how to drive a backhoe, quietly, in the middle of the night, instead, I started to research.
Since that time, I learned that it IS possible with a few varieties. Most of the gardeners note that some years are better than others for flowering and fruit production. But that’s typical of any fruit tree.
The trickiest part about growing stone fruits is the fact that they bloom early in the spring. Spring is notorious for temperature fluctuation. A few warm days might be followed by a cold night with frost, which is the biggest enemy of stone fruits. The delicate flowers are easily frozen, and a whole season’s worth of fruit might be lost in a single cold night.
If you want to throw caution to the wind and grow a peach tree, I say go for it but both the University of MN and University of Wisconsin recommend ‘Reliance’, ‘Harrow Beauty’ or ‘Madison’ cultivars. And prepare to plant in the Spring. Look for cultivars at your LOCAL nurseries first…. they will be more acclimated to your zone!
