Peaches

Our home farm was planted almost completely in peaches when we bought it in 1983. All the peaches were Redhaven or Garnet Beauty, and all ripened within 2 weeks. Was that hectic!

Since then, we have completely renovated our peach orchards, and planted a selection of cultivars that ripen from July through September. We use many of the cultivars developed at the Harrow Research Centre, like Harrow Diamond, Harrow Dawn, Harson, Harrow Beauty, Harrow Fair and Harcrest due to their good production and quality. We also have many advanced selections from the Harrow breeding program, such as HW269, HW270, HW271, HW272 and HW264. These may eventually be named as cultivars if testing in orchards like ours show good results.

We are now growing about 4 acres of peaches, planted in 18' rows with trees between 8 and 12 feet apart in the row. This is considered higher density for peaches, as there are no dwarf rootstocks currently available for peaches. We train our trees to central leader system with spindle tops, which allows us to do 75% of thinning and picking from the ground.

We harvest our peaches as firm-ripe fruit, and hold them at air temperature to ripen and soften. We like to can and freeze peaches that are very ripe and juicy, so we lay them out in a single layer not touching other fruit in a shady spot (we use our picnic table). Each day we check for ripe peaches to use so that fruit rot does not spread. Usually about 1/2 of a basket will be ready to use in 4 or 5 days, and the rest are ready the next day. We try to wait an extra day before canning them - it's better to give them an extra day so the pits and peels come off easily.


For more information on peaches:

See our Recipe File
Tips for preserving
Foodland Ontario Produce Facts - Peaches
British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture and Food peach page

| Return to Home |