Harvest Time: Peaches

The name “peaches” has been attached to many things - movies, music, a wrestler, a sports announcer, a music store and various characters though time. In the Urban Dictionary under “peachy” is also the definition: a cute arse, resembling a firm, tasty and supple peach.

But we are here to talk about the fruit. Native to China, where peaches still grow wild, they eventually made it all the way to the United States. In fact, in the 1870s they became a cash crop planted to help diversify mono-crop cotton that was being destroyed by a little bug called the boll weevil (like “peaches” the boll weevil is also very popular in music, movies, sports, etc.).

Peaches can be grown in many different climates, depending on the variety, anywhere from the California coast to the East coast, and from as far north as Michigan to as far south as Florida. They come in three main categories –

Cling - meaning that the flesh actually “clings” to the pit. These tend to ripen in May.
Semi-freestones – cling, but not quite as much as “cling” peaches. They ripen a little later, in June.
Freestones – the pit is separate from the flesh. Freestones will ripen from June into July.