Dan:

I normally pick Reliance peaches August 10-25th most years.
This year I started picking 4 days ago. Early due to the
hot spring we had.

I find Reliance normally does not get to be a large peach.
Unthinned I get bushels of golf ball sized peaches. Thinned, I get small and medium peaches. Genetics I presume.

This year I find even with watering, my peaches are smaller than normal. However, the skin color and flavor are outstanding this year.

I like to fully ripen them on the tree so I pick evry other day. This does lead to some loss to wasps as each year I get these gigantic black wasps that only appear when my peaches are ripe. Almost all black with just a spot of yellow on their back end.

The wasps find any peach that is soft enough on the sunny side of the fruit and attack it with a vengeance. Woe to me when I am on my ladder and I reach up for the fruit and
find out the hard way that it has numerous wasps in it. I have been stung before so I do be careful.

Time to enjoy peaches and cream, peach pie, peach cobbler and peach jam. Let the good times begin.

My Elbertas are larger than a golf ball, but small and very hard. I know they ripen sometime in late August, but due to no H20, every fruit I have is small. The Apples are small to med. My four 'Harglow' apricots are a bit larger than a quarter. After all this work!

Yes. Mine were very small on the tree that gets very little rain. The Reliance just down from it that catches a lot more water from me watering some potted plants had much larger peaches. PC and squirrels took a good amt.

I was happy this year squirrels didnt get any of my peaches. Also they are out of deer range luckily.

Mine are slightly larger than golf ball.Last year I had some the squirrels got that were baseball size when they were taken.

It is time for cobbler.

Dan

My two daughters and I picked 40 peaches last night that made it inside. Not sure how many we ate before counting what we brought in. Every time I turned around on my ladder, both of my children were munching on peaches. Sweet and jucy to say the least!

This was my second picking. Grand total so far of about 60. I think one more picking will finish the rest of crop.

This tree is 11 years old and I hesitated to keep it any longer as it has been going downhill the past 2 years. Lots of dead wood each spring. Now I am a bit reluctant to cut it down and re-plant. The wife votes for a sweet cherry in its place. I see numerous water sprouts this year at 5' on several of the trunks.

I am thinging of pruning all the large old limbs back to these sprouts next spring and seeing if I can regenerate this old tree?

This is my oldest peach tree so not sure how that would work. I have a lot more years experience in apples than peaches but I think I will give it a try. Nothing to loose.

Does any one have experience re-generating an old peach tree? Or am I better off just re-planting?

I haven't done anything like this but here's what I can share:

Perhaps it'd be a good idea to give the tree a break for a season? Cut off the branches at the end of this growing season and give it high nitrogen fertilizer to start it off next season. Just let it grow branches rather than peaches and break off any peaches that do come about. By doing this, it should be ready and healthier in 2014? This is just a theory, however.