Peach Season- 2017

 This year we were eagerly awaiting peach season! i have two trees that were completely loaded, but with the lack of rain we had during the summer the peaches were small and green. When we finally got a good rain, the peaches immediately plumped up. The trees were so full that the tops of two of the trees broke in half.
Next year the trees will have to be pruned way back, i'm not sure how this will effect them next year, but this year we are enjoying beautiful peaches!!

"Millions of peaches, peaches for me Millions of peaches, peaches for free" Every year when we get a good peach harvest we sing the President's of the United States Peaches song. Husband says the song isn't really about peaches, but what ever. i'm going to sing it every peach season.

One tree was ripe before the other, so by the time the second tree was ripe i was almost peached out. i've been working on canning them, i also worked on pasta sauce earlier this week. :) Canning peaches is a pretty simple, but time consuming process. i used the directions from the PickYourOwn website. This site is a valuable resource for canning and preserving fruits. i did the hot pack method, where you cook the peaches for 5 min. in boiling syrup before packing them in the jars. In the past i've also done the cold pack method, and i'm not sure which i prefer. The cold pack is quicker, but the hot pack is supposed to be safer. While searching for peach recipes i came across one for peach honey, which is made with all the peach peelings that you remove when canning. i love this idea of 'no waste' even though the peeling will end up in the compost and are not really wasted.

i had so man peaches this year, i ended up giving 4 big boxes and a couple bags of peaches away, and still had a crazy amount on the trees. This is just from the first tree, when they first began to ripen. The rain was knocking them out of the tree so i picked as many ripe ones as i could so they wouldn't hit the ground and bruise.

Besides canning peaches, i made peach butter in the crock pot. i didn't really use a recipe. i just cooked down a bunch of skinned peaches with a couple cups of sugar, a bit of lemon juice and some cinnamon. i think i did 5 hours on low, then turned it up to high until it was the correct consistency.

Yesterday i started peaches round two...with peaches from the second tree. After canning the peaches in a light syrup, i cooked down the leftover syrup and made a peach sauce. This can be used on icecream or pancakes.

i also made a peach crisp and peach sorbet which i drizzled with my peach sauce. So good! i'm down to my last box of peaches, so i need to decide what i'm going to make with them. Many are bruised ( i canned the unbruised ones) so i'll probably use them in baking or freeze them.

It's been sort of a weird garden season, with so little rain but things are still doing well. Besides peaches, i've been canning a ton of tomatoes and still have tons in the garden. The weather has started to cool down a bit, so garden season will be winding down soon as well. i did get some fall crops planted, but need to put in a few more.  Feeling pretty good about the amount of produce i've been able to put up this year.


"Blow up your t.v. throw away your paper Go to the country, build you a home Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches Try an find jesus on your own" - John Prine, Spanish Pipedream