It is not unusual to get shipped-in peaches
and nectarines at the supermarkets here in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro
area that have a "wooly" texture. At university we were taught this
results when the fruit is held in cold storage too long. Interestingly
this wooliness occurs mostly in California-grown and packed fruit. Peaches
from the western slope of Colorado generally do not exhibit any of this
wooliness. -- Sam Brungardt, St. Paul, Minn.
Hi Dennis,
If you wouldn't mind, what varieties do you grow? Which do you like
best for flavor? For growing? I realize this is site and climate specific for
your orchard but it might be a good snapshot in that context and useful
information for the rest of us. Thanks.
Dave
----- Original Message -----
Sent: 1/23/06 2:06:42 AM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] grocery store
peaches and nectarines
Being a peach grower with about
1,000 trees, we do things a little differently than the commercial
growers. Peaches grown and shipped commercially to the grocery stores
are picked at first color. That means at the first sign of that
yellowish/red tint, they are ready to pick to be shipped. They are not
picked at the right stage to have any flavor, but the poor folks that have
only purchased peaches at the grocery store don't know any better. To
get the best flavor for peaches, they should be picked when "firm ripe".
"Firm ripe" means they are not soft yet, but not too hard either.
The color should have a good red tint to it, but not too much red.
They should be "cooled down" at 68 degrees for 24 hours. Then they
should be stored at 34 degrees while waiting to be sold. Can anyone
imagine a commercial grower doing this? Since we grow only for our own
market, this is how we handle our peaches. We have never been able to
meet the demand for our peaches and have always had to supplement. We
purchase our supplements from Eckert's Orchards in Bellville, IL who grow
their peaches the same as we do and pick them at the same time. Our
shipments arrive on Friday morning, having been picked on Thursday. We
store them at 34 degrees and they last us for a good 7 days. We always
sell out just when that next shipment arrives and have never had a complaint
about tasteless peaches. And we still have a problem meeting
demand! It's a good problem to have.
By the way, 34 degrees is the
optimum temperature for storage of peaches and apples as well as scion
wood. When our new trees arrive to be planted, we keep them at 34 until
they go into the ground, which is within 36 hours. Apples and peaches
stored at 36 degrees will start to break down much faster than at 34 and at 40
won't last at all. 40 degrees is the temperature at which bacteria will
start to develop and any good health department would shut anyone down if
their refrigerator that held any food being served to the public was
at 40 degrees or above. If I can locate an article from Fruit Growers
News about the latest storage tests done on peaches I will post it that covers
this exact subject.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2006 11:01
PM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] grocery store
peaches and nectarines
I have always blamed the poor taste and texture of store peaches and
nectarines on early picking as well, but it may be worse than just that one
commercial consideration that accounts for this. Last summer I was
able to tour a test orchard for new and not so recent but modern
commercial cultivars and participated in the evaluation of about 20 ripe
varieties which we picked off the tree. It wasn't long before I began to
notice that what we were tasting were all very similar to each other and
also very much like what I had tasted from the grocery store.
Let me repeat, we were picking these right off the trees. The only time I
tasted anything that was beginning to be sweet and juicy was when I
wandered off to trees that had most of their fruit on the ground and
then, when I would remark that this one was pretty good, I was told not to
pay any attention to it as it was past. I left the station very
disappointed in what I had exp ected to be a magnificent day of indulgent
peach pleasure, but with my eyes opened to the painful truth: it is the
large, beautiful, firm, red commercial peaches that are bad, not when they
pick them. Stopping at a friend's place on the way home I had the best peach
of the day, by far. His neighbor had a seedling tree that came from a
Reliance pit and the fruit was much like it - small, yellow, fuzzy, sweet,
juicy, with amazing flavor and aroma, and so soft you couldn't have shipped
it across the street. But then why would you have wanted to?
Dave
MN, zone 4a
----- Original Message -----
Sent: 1/22/06 10:21:57 PM
Subject: [NAFEX] grocery store
peaches and nectarines
On Jan 22, 2006, at 10:37 PM, road's end farm wrote:
On Jan 22, 2006, at 8:46 PM, Spidra Webster
wrote:
For the last several years I've found that store
nectarines are a
better bet than peaches. But the last season or so
nectarines have
seemed just as bad. I hardly got a good peach
this summer but I think
it might be due to the fact that I wasn't
getting out to the Farmer's
Market or gourmet stores enough.
Grocery store peaches are almost always terrible
as they're almost always picked too green. If you wait till they're
close enough to ripe so that they'll develop full flavor, they're too
close to ripe to ship very far.
Many many years ago I did a brief stint picking
peaches in Washington State, while wandering around the country. We were
told that we might as well eat the ripe ones, they couldn't be shipped
anyway. A revelation. Probably one reason I'm farming
today.
--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone
5
All in all, I usually prefer grocery store peaches to grocery store
nectarines. But it's a crap shoot. The best "peach" I ever had
was a nectarine several years ago, and this year we got a batch of
terrific nectarines. We also got some really excellent peaches form
the local produce place, though. Even the locally grown ones vary a
lot. they were only excellent for a week and a half, both earlier
and later they were just so-so. I'm sure the local farmers grow more
than one type, and I'd guess that only one cultivar was both an excellent
cultivar and also arrived ripe in the store.
Ginda
eastern Mass., zone
6
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