Green Wizardries, The Peach Harvest by Maxine Rogers
Denman and Hornby Islands stand alone against the great peach failure of 2024. The entire Okanagan Valley was wiped out of peaches, plums and nectarines when a huge cold snap froze the trees that had not hardened off properly due to a very warm autumn. I know for a fact that some Denman peaches were exported to the Okanagan and caused a minor stir when a person carelessly let it slip that they were canning peaches in Osoyoos. People wanted to know where the peaches had come from and if they could get any.
We have a couple of Frost peaches which we bought from Beulah Creek Nursery on Hornby. These trees have provided us with a good harvest of peaches this year. I had just finished canning the first batch when a very kind friend called up and asked if we would like some more peaches. Our friend wanted to give us the peaches for nothing but eventually accepted a loaf of my home-made raisin bread and that I would make six pints of peach jam for him.
We went to pick the peaches in his greenhouse that he has cleverly pruned to follow the roof of the greenhouse in an arc, to maximize growing space. It smelt like heaven should smell in that greenhouse. The fruit were puzzlingly small this year, but so sweet and full of flavour. We picked box after box until the European paper wasps became upset and started to buzz around angrily. Our host graciously said he would get rid of the wasps and pick the rest of the fruit for us. This in a time of peach famine is not a small favour.
The first thing I did when we got home was to wash a box of the little peaches and slice them in two and pop them cut side up into the dehydrator. I had just emptied a load of dehydrated zucchinis and tomatoes from the dehydrator. From late summer on, the dehydrator is in constant use here. Dehydrated peaches make excellent candy, are shelf stable and can be rehydrated if someone wants to bake a peach pie or cobbler in the winter.
To rehydrate dried fruit, put the fruit in a bowl and cover it with boiling water. I put a small bowl on top to hold the fruit down under the water. After abut 15 minutes, the fruit is ready to work with. To add extra flavour, you can use hot juice and even add a shot of rum or brandy to the fluid.
I will also be canning more peaches in a honey syrup which we like much better than sugar syrup. I make the syrup with four quarts of water and two cups of honey which is heated on the stove. I can fruit the old-fashioned way which I learned from Linda Gilkeson, the garden writer.
Linda explained to me that when she was little, everyone peeled the peaches, dipped them in some lemon water to stop them discolouring and packed them in the jars. Next, hot syrup was poured over the fruit, hot lids were applied and the whole shebang was popped into the boiling water-bath canner. When the water began to boil again, the timer would be set for twenty-five minutes for pints and thirty minutes for quarts.
The modern way is much more difficult as the new advice calls for the peaches to be boiled in syrup before being packed into the jars, covered with more syrup and then put in the water-bath canner. I have yet to figure out how to do this without getting burned and having the first few boiled peaches splat into the bottom of the jar. I have been canning fruit the old-fashioned way for years now with very good results but I urge all of my readers to follow the new procedures even if they make no sense and the product is not as good.
The time for planting trees is in November and I can highly recommend the Frost peach as a good outdoor peach for this area. The Frost seems immune to peach-leaf curl which is caused by the leaves getting wet. Other varieties of peach should be grown under a shelter.
Our generous friend who gave us the free-stone peaches (the stones just pop out of the peach with little effort) mentioned he grew his two indoor peach trees from seed and they grew true to type. I am going to save some of those peach stones and pot them up and leave them in the winter rains on the porch and see what we get. We have space for a couple of small trees in our greenhouse. Having your own peaches is a great way to add resiliency to your household as well as a great deal of pleasure.
The dreaded peach famine underscores the lesson that we don’t need to preserve all the produce we will need in the coming year: we need to preserve enough produce to have a two or three year supply to cover occasions like the peach famine.
