When to harvest Peach in the UK
Peach is planted rather than sown from seed, so the dates below are harvest dates.
Harvest dates by region
Peach shows the same dates across the whole UK, so every region below reads the same. Where a plant’s timings do follow the frost, Plot shifts them from the Midlands and Lowland Wales baseline using Met Office average frost dates.
| Where you are | Harvest |
|---|---|
| South West Coast and Cornwall | mid July to mid September |
| South Coast and Channel | mid July to mid September |
| Greater London (Urban Heat Island) | mid July to mid September |
| South East and Home Counties | mid July to mid September |
| East Anglia | mid July to mid September |
| Midlands and Lowland Wales | mid July to mid September |
| Wales and West Coast | mid July to mid September |
| Northern England | mid July to mid September |
| Scotland Lowlands and Central Belt | mid July to mid September |
| Scotland Highlands and Islands | mid July to mid September |
| Northern Ireland | mid July to mid September |
| Channel Islands and Isle of Man | mid July to mid September |
Growing notes
The hardest fruit tree in this list to crop reliably outdoors: it needs a warm sheltered wall, hand-pollination in late winter, frost protection for the blossom and a winter rain shelter against peach leaf curl. Nectarines are grown identically but need slightly warmer conditions to ripen; patio varieties such as 'Bonanza' in a 45cm pot can be moved under cover.
At a glance
- Spacing
- 450 cm between plants
- Row spacing
- 500 cm
- Plants per m²
- 0.05
- Yield per plant
- 10 kg
- Eventual height
- 200 cm
- Eventual spread
- 450 cm
- Sun
- Full
- Frost tender
- No
- Grows in a container
- Yes, 90 litres or more
- Minimum soil depth
- 45 cm
- Balcony rating
- 2 out of 5
Pruning: what to avoid
Like all stone fruit, peaches must only be pruned in spring or summer, never in winter, or silver leaf and bacterial canker get in. Peaches fruit almost entirely on shoots made the previous year, so pruning means replacing old fruited wood with new young shoots: prune newly planted trees soon after the buds open in early spring, established fans in spring and again after fruiting, and free-standing trees in summer after harvest.
Pruning group
peach and nectarine (spring and post-harvest summer pruning only)
Bare-root season
Bare-root stock is lifted and sold while dormant, from early November to late March. Container-grown plants can go in at other times of year, but bare-root is cheaper and establishes well.
How long until it crops
Expect the first worthwhile pick about 3 years after planting, and a productive life of roughly 15 years.
What usually goes wrong
- peach leaf curl
- frost-damaged blossom
- bacterial canker
- silver leaf
- glasshouse red spider mite
Related guides
Timings cross-checked against RHS guidance for peach.