Peaches - what does "tasting green" mean?

[janedoe]

My peach tree is so heavy with peaches that I'm afraid the branches will snap but it seems to be taking longer than usual for them to get ripe. Looked up online about harvesting them early but read that they don't ripen well if they're harvested with any underlying green because then they'll "taste green". What does that mean?

[Maxx&Emma]

I know just from my own peach trees, (no scientific knowledge involved here, lol!), if they are picked before fully ripe they never taste ripe, they taste like they were picked too soon. Just a side note my peach, apple and pear trees are also loaded with fruit. During a bad storm that had crazy winds of 70 mph, one of my pear trees split in half. It broke my heart.

[SunDance]

I think they stay harder than normal, too, even as they ripen. I've had peaches that go from hard to rotting...never pass through that "just right to eat" phase...perhaps this was why.

[Snowshoe]

Not peaches but we have knocked fruit off before it was ripe to save branches from breaking. I'd rather lose some fruit than a branch.

[LucyTudeOn4Feet]

Can you shore up some branches with 2x4's?

[Snowshoe]

Can you shore up some branches with 2x4's?

If you do this put something around to cushion the branches to protect the bark from abrasion in a wind. We couldn not figure a way to make this work, really. Shoring up at the broad end still left a lot of heavy fruit laden branch hanging. Shoring up at the otehr end left sagging in the middle. Ours were pear, apple and mountain ash, maybe peach are different?

[janedoe]

I cut off an entire branch and that really seemed to help the tree. I left the peaches on the branch and they shriveled up so whatever happens, don't do that. Maybe I'll pick off the smaller ones and toss those out.

[POPTOP]

Doesn't help this year, but next year you might want to take some blooms off next year to keep down the amount of fruit thus keeping down the weight.

[janedoe]

Doesn't help this year, but next year you might want to take some blooms off next year to keep down the amount of fruit thus keeping down the weight.

I've had problems with animals taking the peaches in the past (one year, the entire crop in one day) so I wanted to give it the best shot possible but then I discovered peppermint oil and seem to have driven off whatever was going at the tree. Now I have a billion peaches. So much for the plan . . .

[windycanyon]

Green = sour. Poor soluble solids (think sugar).
Crop load management is essential to producing quality. Mama tree can only support so many babies... next year, don't be surprised if she doesn't bear so well.