Holy peaches, Batman! Fresh off the tree, peaches are only good for about a week. They seemed to ripen over about a month overall, but what the tree yielded this year is way more than any two people can eat in a month.
We ended up giving away quite a few peaches. One woman even ended up trading back some pickles she made for a tray of peaches, which was the ultimate suburban homesteader’s win! I would LOVE to find more situations where I can trade and barter things locally.
I still had some canned peaches and peach jam from last year’s peach festival purchase $75 dollars for 25 pounds of peaches. My peach tree originally cost $150 and has yielded well over 50 pounds of peaches, so it was a great investment. Fruit trees have the highest up front time and cost investment, but the yields are going to pay for themselves and then some after only a few years of yields.
This year, I decided to do a mix of freeze and dehydrating. I’m not quite sure what to do with it all, but I’ll keep a running list of uses here.
Dehydrate batch 1:
- Peeled the peaches using the score + drop in boiling water method
- Cut the peaches into 1/2 inch or so chunks and put into the dehydrator for 12 hours at 135 degrees.
- These peaches were very difficult to get off the dehydrator trays
They also turned a really dark brown color that didn’t match the pictures I saw online. I realized I skipped the ascorbic acid or lemon juice step for color preservation. I have a jar of fruit protectant I ended up using in my pears and applesauce so I was more prepared for dehydrating round 2
Dehydrate batch 2:
- Prepare 1/2 gallon of water with 1/2 tsp of Ball fruit protectant
- Sliced all the peaches, leaving skin on and keeping them in the bowl of ascorbic acid water
- Drained the slices, laid out close, but not touching on the dehydrator trays
- Dehydrated for 12 hours at 135 degrees.
The second batch came out much nicer aesthetically. They also popped right off the trays, so I think in the future this is definitely going to be my preferred method.
For freezing, I just sliced, placed on a silicon lined half baking sheet, froze and put in a labeled tupperware.
My current ideas for the dehydrated peaches:
- Topping oatmeal
- Mixing into granola
- Replacing “golden raison” for peach chunks in a few recipes I have
We are not really a dessert family, and a lot of the ideas I’ve seen online for frozen peaches are around making pies or cakes. So far the only thing I’ve come up with is mixing into smoothies or thawing and mixing into oatmeal.
That’s all for now!