Peaches

I must have eaten 6 or 7 peaches today. They were so ripe and sooooo good. These were from the store, but we used to live where peaches grew right behind our house. Some nights, I'd go pick a bowl full of peaches and we'd just eat them all for dinner. The sugar content was so high right off the tree. But today's peaches from the store were pretty wonderful too.

I just realized as I wrote this that I planted a peach tree today too. I bought a bare root peach tree from Costco a few months ago (maybe even as far back as February). I'm not that great at keeping up on gardening, but saw that they were selling peach trees and thought maybe I could get it to grow here (even though I only know of one person in the whole county who has peach trees that produce -- and she says it's only once every 4 or 5 years). I guess I was hopeful though, so I bought it. Then I let it sit on the side of the house in it's little root ball bag and wondered if it would survive. It rains enough here that it seemed to do well. We had a spell of sunshine and my gardening friend told me I should move it to the side of the house. I did and it's lived there since.

This morning, however, I saw that the leaves looked dry (see, I'm not completely oblivious to the needs of my dear plants, but pretty close, actually). I had a big bag of top soil and decided the time had come to plant it in a big pot. I would have just put it in the ground, but our house is for sale and I'd like to take it with me. It's not like I don't think I can buy another one when we move (and the thought that this might not survive a move did cross my mind), but I seriously doubt it ever will produce fruit here, so it's probably better off going with us to Southern California.

So I ate a bunch of peaches and I planted a peach tree. How peachy is that? Here are some nutritional peach facts (for just 1 peach) in case you're curious:

One medium peach (with skin) contains 1 gram dietary fiber.

Potassium - 193 mg Phosphorus - 12 mg Magnesium - 6.9 mg Calcium - 5 mg Selenium - .4 mg Also contains trace amounts of iron, zinc, manganese and copper.

Vitamin A - 524 IU Vitamin C - 19 mg Folate (important during pregnancy) - 5.5 mcg Niacin - .97 mg

This chart doesn't include all the phytonutrients recently discovered (and rarely listed on labels), nor those yet to be discovered.

I also love dehydrated peaches. They are so yummy warm out of the dehydrator -- they're better than peach cobbler! They're excellent days, weeks, & even months later. I just have never had them last for more than a week. We eat them faster than we can make them. Just slice them and dehydrate at 108 degrees over night. Make sure there aren't any moist spots left or they will mold (learned that the hard way my first time). I throw sliced peaches into my sprouted wheat cracker recipe too. (I can't seem to find that recipe on my previous blog posts, so I'll post it tomorrow.)

Peaches are also great in green smoothies. I often throw one in place of a banana in my smoothie recipes. Gives that sweet, creamy taste and texture. They're also good just blended by themselves. When I was 12 (I only remember this because it was the bicentennial year 1976), my aunt got married and I helped cut up fresh fruit for her reception. They had us peel peaches and blended up the peelings for us helpers to drink. It was amazingly good and something I've never forgotten. TTFN!