What's eating my peregrine peach?

Peregrine Peach, Britain's best-loved garden peach, contends with green peach aphid, plum moth, red spider mite on warm walls, and brown scale. Squirrels and birds are serious problems as the large, fragrant fruit ripens in August. Aphids cause the most consistent season-long damage — early bud-burst sprays are the key first defence.

Colonies tightly curl shoot tips from bud burst onwards; honeydew promotes sooty mould; persistent infestations reduce shoot extension and fruit size. Spray with insecticidal soap or pyrethrin at bud burst before leaf curl traps the colony; pinch out infested tips; support natural predators.

Pink larvae bore into fruit, tunnelling to the stone; frass visible at the entry hole; fruit drops early or is inedible at harvest. Pheromone traps from May; spinosad at first adult capture and again 3 weeks later; collect and destroy windfalls.

Leaves become bronzed and stippled with fine webbing on the underside; severe in hot summers, particularly on wall-trained trees. Keep tree well-watered; mist leaves in dry spells; release Phytoseiulus persimilis predatory mites; insecticidal soap on leaf undersides.

Remove or bite into large ripe fruit from late July, often causing near-total loss of the crop if unprotected. Net with fine-mesh fruit netting as fruit approaches ripeness; harvest as soon as fruit is ready rather than leaving it to fully soften on the tree.