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Earl Aagaard’s opinions about everything that interests him. Og also enjoys gardening, travel, reading, woodbutchery, and lots of other stuff.

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PEACHES FOR THE FREEZER

For most of the spring, every peach I bought (and I kept buying - hope springs eternal) turned out to be a CLINGSTONE PEACH, a variety I’ve been familiar with (and highly unimpressed by) mainly as commercially canned peaches - halves or slices.

Then, out by Home Depot a couple of weeks ago, I stopped at the stand by the exit of the shopping center, where a family from THE DALLES has been selling fruit this spring. I’ve bought cherries (two kinds and wonderful) and apricots (not so wonderful, though better and cheaper than the markets) from them, and this time they had peaches that looked familiar - I asked if they were cling or freestone. They were RED HAVEN PEACHES, a freestone variety I’m not all that familiar with, as the Central Valley was pretty well solid with FAYE ELBERTA peaches, which must really be suited for that area. Anyhow, I bought a couple of pounds of his Red Havens for $1.50/pound, and they were wonderful
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We ate several out of hand, and I peeled and cut up the rest, sprinkling on some ascorbic acid powder in enough sugar to distribute it evenly. That was SO good - it reminded me of the frozen sliced nectarines we used to put up every fall in Angwin, and eat out of the freezer all winter long…..so I went back and asked what kind of a discount I could get if I bought a whole box. He sold me 20 pounds for a dollar a pound, and I don’t know how that compares to Modesto these days, but in Bend, OR it’s a pretty good price.
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Then, of course, I had to put them up….here are about half of them:
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I rinsed off much of the fuzz, cut them in half, peeled them and chopped them into chunks in the big bowl…..
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About four quarts of peaches took half a cup of sugar and a couple of Tablespoons of ascorbic acid to keep them bright yellow (LOTS cheaper than Fruit-Fresh), and after a good stir, into the freezer bags the went….
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It was hard not to dig right in….but I bagged up almost all of them, and poked them into the freezer, near the strawberries put up earlier in the summer.
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