We have gotten some raspberries here and there, though not in monumental amounts. Last year the deer helped themselves as soon as the biggest crop started coming in. We were smart this year and put up netting early on to keep out both the rabbits and deer.
We started out with six peach trees. One of them died, so now we have five, and three are doing better than the other two. This year we actually had blossoms on those three better trees, but this was also the year we had some freezing temperatures a little later than usual during spring. We gently covered two of the trees with tarps (we didn't have enough for the third) and hung heat lamps inside the makeshift tents.
All of that tender loving care resulted in one of the trees putting out one peach. One little peach. We watched it intently, checked on it nearly every day. It grew bigger, started to turn red, and then suddenly it was gone! We assume a squirrel or some other critter helped himself to the little peach. It was very disappointing. We had been looking forward to trying our very first peach.
Oh well. At least this one little peach has given us hope that our trees might give us even more peaches next year.
In the mean time, peaches were recently on sale at the grocery store. We made peach crisp, peach cake, and even some peach preserves! Here are links to each of those recipes.
Each recipe is delicious, delightful, and just so perfectly summery.
I am especially looking forward to enjoying the preserved peaches in the middle of winter. They would be a lovely topping for ice cream, oatmeal, yogurt, or maybe even mixed into some kind of baked good. After I filled all of the prepared pint jars with the stewed peaches and tucked them into the water bath canning pot, there was a bit of peach syrup left in the bottom of the pot. It tasted like *summer*. So sweet, peachy, and scrumptious. I gave Oliver a taste of the syrup and he kept coming back for more.
Peaches are the best.
Canning is fun.
I love trying new recipes and just generally spending time cooking in our kitchen. Someday I hope to spend my time preparing peaches from our own peach trees.
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