More peach preservation experiments
I've always felt it
was too much effort to keep track of yields if a crop isn't
harvested all at once, so I don't know for sure how much fruit our
kitchen peach produced this year. My best guess is about
four bushels, which is just about average for a mature peach and
which feels like a lot.
Since I ran out of
freezer room (having saved some space back for more green beans
and soup), I did a lot of experimenting with alternative
preservation techniques (compared to our tried-and-true peach
leather). I canned
a load of peach chunks (which look good) and a load of peach
sauce (in which I didn't leave enough head room, resulting in an
eruption that ruined the seal on five jars during cooling).
And then there were the jams.
As I've written
previously, it took some experimentation to figure out how
to make cooked jams with no store-bought pectin, and I'm
still working the kinks out of the process. This week's
experiment involved lowering the sugar levels, and also mixing in
smaller amounts of other fruits. I learned that pure white
peaches will make a slightly-runny jam with two cups of sugar per
batch (two cups of peach puree and two cups of apple-pectin
juice), but I wouldn't want to go any lower with the sugar
content if I expected my jam to set.
Maggie gave
me two cups of pulpy grape juice that she had laboriously
harvested from her Concords, and I turned those into a batch of
jam as well. Adding two cups of apple-pectin juice and two
cups of sugar resulted in a fast, thick jam, making me think that
I could have cut back the sugar content. Or, better yet,
mixed some of the grape juice with peach pulp for a tangy, well-set jam
containing less sugar.
Since I was making a batch of peach jam at the same
time as the grape and didn't have quite three cups of the finished
grape jam, I added a layer of peach on top of each jar for a very
unique jam presentation. This jam layering didn't work as
well with less-dense jams, though, so be forewarned.
In the midst of all
this peach-and-jam frenzy, I let the red raspberries and
blueberries start to get away from me. So, Saturday, I mixed
peaches and berries to make a beautiful, slightly-tarter jam (even
though the sugar content was my now-standard two cups of sugar per
four-fruit-cup batch). The red-raspberry/peach and
blueberry/peach jams are still setting up, so I don't know how
well they gelled, but they sure did taste delicious when I licked
out the pans, and the colors are stunning.
Although all of this experimentation has been fun, I'm definitely
glad the last few peaches are in the fridge for fresh eating, with
none left on the tree. I can't imagine having more than one
tree producing at the same time, so take heed while planning your
orchard!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Emily --- Excellent question! Unfortunately, I have no idea. What I ordered wasn't a white peach, so I'm guessing this was either a variety mixup or the rootstock sprouted and they didn't realize. Whichever, it's a very hardy tree!
We got it from Clemson's Extension service (via my father). I can't find a list of their selections online, but the extension service does have recommendations for the backyard, and Belle of Georgia/Georgia Belle is the one that looks most like the one I have. So maybe that?