A post from Brad at AB Phillips & Sons Fruit Farm

Despite an extremely early spring, our peaches survived all frost scares and produced a heavy set of fruit.  Consequently we are now thinning most of them off!  Peach trees only need 5% of their bloom to make a full crop.  Over-cropping leads to small, not as tasty, fruit and more broken branches.  So I am knocking them off now by a time honored method – a stiff section of hose on a broomstick!  See before and after photos as an example.

Peaches before thinning:

Peaches after thinning: