Garden Plant: Donut Peach Tree
Donut Peach Tree
Product Description: Donut Peach Tree
Luscious Donut Peach Tree Is A Must-Have
- Early Season
- Incredible Sweet Taste
- Clingstone, Doughnut Shaped Fruit
- White Fleshed
- Dependable, Heavy Harvest
- Precocious, Bears Fruit as a Young Tree
- Self-Fruitful
- Low Chill
- Winter Hardy
- Ancient Asian Species
Have you ever seen a healthy Donut? Groceries stores have started carrying these luscious flattened peaches. They taste great, but fruit that must be trucked long distance is often picked too early. Grow your own Donut Peach tree (Prunus persica \’Donut’) to really experience the amazing tree-ripe flavor of this special fruit.
This wonderful fruit is a fun novelty, but the taste is nothing short of outstanding. Well known in China for over 1000 years, the skin of a Donut Peach is red over a light yellow with light fuzz. The flattened fruit is the perfect eating size.
It’s sweet, juicy and white fleshed. Kids love the taste and the fun shape. It’s mild, and less acidic than other peach selections and has a faintly almond taste.
As you can imagine, this variety of white fleshed fruit was known by any number of different names. Donut Peach or Stark Saturn (Also known as Peento, Saucer, Pan tao, Saturn Peach, or Doughnut) are distinctively shaped white peaches that would finally find its way to the United States in about 1871.
It has a doughnut-shaped “flat” fruit with a sunken center and plump outer edge. It is just as wide as the most common varieties but is flatter than other peach selections. Its juicy, white flesh is mild flavored.
It has a clingstone pit in the sunken center shaped like a doughnut. Because this is a flat Peach, you can easily eat all around the pit. In fact-you can almost snap the ripe fruit in half while prepping. This exposes the pit, which can then be easily removed.
Donut Peach fruit trees are reliable and known for dependable yields from a young tree. This is a variety that works in both low and high chill climates. Donut Peach requires an estimated 400-500 hours of chilling, but it will still produce well in the colder areas of Zones 5-8.
Donut Peach is an improved early blooming variety. With careful selection, these trees are bred to have more frost tolerant blooms which should make it through the occasional late spring frost. Give it a sheltered spot in Zones 5 and 6.
Order now to start enjoying your own backyard harvest of perfectly ripened Donut Peaches!
How to Use Donut Peach
Eat them fresh or dehydrated (dried). Use them in fabulous preserves, and don’t forget the grill. Pop out the pit, slice them in half and place them on the grill for a short time. The heat really brings out the outstanding flavors of this special fruit!
Consider planting one with other exciting varieties of Donut style Peaches and Nectarines. The wonderful white fleshed Sugar Pie Nectarine or the incredible red fleshed Scarlet Halo or Pink fleshed Pink Halo make fantastic partner plants.
Plant them in a hedgerow. Measure 5 to 7 feet apart on center-from the center of one to the center of the next-and enjoy a harvest of flat fruit for the entire summer. All are self-fruitful but will crop more with some pollinating partners close by.
Donut Peach also puts on a tremendous spring display of light pink flowers that would make the perfect ornamental garden backdrop. Use as a specimen in the front yard for a really modern edible landscape or use 3 in a small grouping. These trees are absolutely beautiful!
Pro Plant Tips for Care
Modern fruit tree growers work diligently on making varietal and facility improvements. There have been many advanced solutions developed against common pests, leaf curl and other bacterial diseases.
In your backyard orchard, give your Donut Peach a place in full sun where it will get the drying power of the morning sun. Good air circulation is important, too. Prune Donut Peach to keep the center of the tree open to both air and sunlight.
In Zones 5 and 6, it’s essential to choose a full sun location with good exposure to the early morning sun. Morning sun protects against late spring frosts and will help warm up the spring blooms quickly for the best fruit production later in the season.
The Donut requires good drainage to thrive. If you see puddles long after a rain, you might assume that you have poorly drained soil. Improve drainage by creating a mound or raised bed 12 to 18 inches above the soil line out at least 3 feet wide. Plant directly into that mound.
Peaches benefit from keeping the roots cool in the hot summer. Mulch the tree to 3 to 4 inches deep to 3 feet from the outside of the canopy of the tree.
Donut Peach bears a heavy crop of fruit that measures 2 1/4 to 2 3/4 inches in diameter. It does require some thinning to ensure good fruit size. Thin to space fruit at least a fist size between each piece to get the perfect size fruit.
Just like people have for a thousand years, You’ll cherish the luscious, homegrown fruit. There is nothing more satisfying than growing your own fruit for family and special friends.
Why wait? Order your healthy Donut Peach tree for your home garden today and get started!