Peach Pickin'

I took the boys to pick peaches today at the local pick-your-own orchard.   We have picked strawberries there before, but never peaches.  Turns out it was a lot of fun and I'm really glad Jack talked me into it.

Unexpectedly, a tractor and trailer took us deep into the peach orchard to roam around and pick whatever we wanted.  That was the best part, the kids loved it.  

Bo got to ride in a wagon.  Well, he rode in it for about twenty seconds until he performed a tricky tuck-and-roll maneuver, peeled off both shoes and then ran for the hills.

The trees were heavy with fruit.  Thankfully the weather here has been unseasonably mild, so the temp was only in the 80''s.

Jack was really excited about this whole thing, which is uncharacteristic of him.  I let him pick a whole basket.  I told him large fruit, no bug holes and with a lot of color.  Once I got home and sorted them out, he had several small fruits with lots of bug holes and no color.  

"Oh" he said.  "I thought you meant the other way around".  Ha.  

Yes, see… He had a particular affinity for the odd shaped ones.  He had nearly an entire basket of misfit peaches.  I'm sure an oval peach tastes just as good as a round one.  We'll see anyway.  

   

  

No chance of losing Justice in the orchard.  He whistled his way around the entire thing.  We sometimes call him The Whistler.  I don't know whether I've ever mentioned it before, but he whistles constantly.  I mean day in and day out.  It used to be annoying but I'm used to it now.  

Oh look, there's Bo.  Taking a bite of every nasty peach he could find that was already on the ground.  

We ended up with a full bushel of peaches.  That means I've got a lot of work ahead of me, since one can't eat an entire bushel of fresh peaches.  I put up ten quarts of peaches already this week, and there is still more to go.  I had ordered a half bushel from Justice's piano teacher for a school fundraiser so I'm really swimming in peaches.  I will make some peach butter and freeze some for smoothies, too.

On a side note, I canned two different batches on two different days.  Same kind of peaches, different method.  The first batch I did a raw-pack.  They floated too much, but they sure were pretty.  I used organic sugar this time around for the syrup and it resulted in a really pretty golden color syrup since organic sugar is sort of a caramel color.

To avoid the whole floating issue, I heat-packed today's batch.  They aren't nearly as pretty, but I don't have a problem with floating this time.  If you aren't a canning aficionado, raw pack canning is much easier.  You just pack the raw fruit in the jar and cover with syrup.  The problem is that depending on how much juice is in the fruit, the fruit shrinks as it sits in the water bath and the jars don't appear to be full.  With heat-packing, you quickly boil the fruit and syrup together before packing it into the jars.  I don't like this method because the peaches are softer after the canning process.  It does fill up the jars well though, because the shrinkage of the fruit occurs before it gets into the jar.  See all that extra syrup in the raw-pack jars?  It makes a most awesome base for peach lemonade.  Boom.  There's your canning lesson for today.

This was a really fun trip, all the kids had a ton of fun picking their own fruit.  I am a little weary and sweaty from being hunkered down over a canner all day, but that's ok.  If the zombies come this winter, we will have plenty of peaches to eat.  :)