And then, within four hours of them ripening, it's like all of God's creation has swooped into that dang tree and stolen every peach off of it. I literally had a squirrel look me square in the eye and hiss at me, one year, when I tried to shoo them all off.
My peach tree is forever the 1985 Christmas rush on Cabbage Patch Dolls.
I have the same problem with my berries and the friendly neighborhood possums, especially since every time I plant them somewhere, they seem to be replaced by 'someone' else's plethora of rose bushes. But y'know; with large fruits (and vine veggies), you can harvest early & have them continue to ripen on your counters.
We used to have gooseberry and blackberry bushes, an apple tree, and a cherry tree. Actually, we still have the cherry tree.
We'd had problems with birds for a couple of years when we came across these mesh net things you put over your berry bushes to keep the birds out. And they worked fine. Unfortunately we then had a new problem - all of the local kids and their opposable thumbs foiling the nets and consequently, our plans for jam.
The apples were relatively simple too, insofar as you wait until they have a couple of days to go, and then go pick them anyway, let them get ripe in the shed in a box for the last week. Initially there was the thieving child issue again, but they quickly learned that Bramley cooking apples only taste sweet in the pie and crumble, but are incredibly bitter as a fruit.
The cherry tree solved the need for worrying about fruit all by itself. After a point it stopped fruiting. Just one year it had no cherries on, hasn't had again. Still blossoms though. It's not that big a deal though, as cherries were the one thing we couldn't think of a way around the birds with.
As for the cherries, it's possible that there was a male cherry tree in the area which has died.
And as for the fruit, try nets or try planting a more attractive fruit tree to tempt the animals away, like mulberries or... I don't know, mulberries. Something you don't care that much about.
The solution for peaches is definitely to pick them before they are fully ripe, then ripen them on the counter (for some reason, on top of brown paper bags is supposed to be the best way, or so we were told by peach orchardists!).
My parents had raspberry canes. Every year, about the time the fruit started to look ripe, it disappeared. Vanished. Gone, but only on the lower third of the canes. Could not figure out what was happening, since we didn't have squirrels, and the kids around there didn't like raspberries that much. Then we noticed that the neighbor's dog would come sniffing around, and start licking the canes. Mystery solved, but no way around the missing fruit.
Just saw this Wondermark carton about peaches gone to the birds.
http://wondermark.com/607/ [wondermark.com]
