My Tiny PlotHow to Tell If a Peach is Ripe
Well, the short answer is, ‘when it looks like this’. But, okay I’ll give you the long answer then.
I had no idea how to tell if a Peach is ripe until a few days ago when I thought – hmm that Peach looks ripe but I’m too much of a wuss to pick it and see. So I turned to the ‘all-seeing eye’ (the Internet) for some friendly advice. This is what it said.
Your Peach is ripe if…
- 1. It smells like a Peach
- 2. The side facing the sun has gone a nice dark, peach colour (as above)
- 3. The side facing away from the sun is yellow (not green).
- 4. The yellow side is firm but not hard
- 5. The Peach comes away easily with a light twist
Under no circumstances squeeze the Peach – they bruise very easily.
So there you have it. Happy Peach pickings.
ps. It tasted divine – and Dad, no you can’t have any!
Mm, mm, mm. Lovely looking peaches!
I live in Hong Kong and you can rarely buy an un-bruised peach, so I’ve had to start cooking them.
My favourite recipe is to cut them into 1/4s or 1/8s and throw them in a dish with a halved vanilla bean, a star anise, a stick of cinnamon (sometimes even a split green cardamon pod), a good splodge of honey and then either a dash of white/rose wine or a dessert liquor, or even a splash of orange juice.
Sling it in a low (160ish) oven for 20-odd minutes (mixing it all around half way through)and then when it’s cooled off a bit serve it with greek yoghurt or ice-cream.
Yumptious, and rids me of my frustration at rubbish produce here. So jealous of your lovely plot!
White peaches are even more fragile than yellow but also more delicious. Surplus can be skinned and liquidised then frozen as an ingredient for Bellini cocktails next year (or Christmas Day perhaps ! ). I have also poached slices very gently in vanilla flavoured syrup and frozen them successfully. Amazingly they retain their flavour, texture and even their fragrance several months later. Mmmmmmmmm.
I concur – the peaches are amazingly yummy.
Smell is such an important indicator of ripeness – if you trusted your nose in the supermarket you’d never buy anything! Often their fruit is hard and unripe and rots before it ripens.
Eating a ripe peach is best done over the sink so you’re ready to wash the excess juice off!
I’m very envious of you being able to grow peaches!
I went peach picking the other weekend and the owners made sure to give a “peach lesson” to all of us before we headed out…. the smell of the ripe peach is like a huge “pick me!!” sign :-)
One peach had a suntan – where its leaves fell in a V shape, the peach was light yellow compared to the deep orange of the rest.
mmm. As I said before I’m usually a nectarine girl but that does look quite delicious. I’m tempted to grow my own peach trees too now!
I’m surprised how well it’s ripened considering the weather. Have you had Wales’s share of the sunshine then? ;)
Diane – I did indeed eat it over the sink. I had no option really, it was so juicy!
Ria – it’s been quite rainy here – warm but rainy and dull. I’m surprised they have ripened too. It’s on a south-facing wall in a walled, sunken garden. That could be the answer.
A warm, ripe peach, straight off the tree; bliss!
We used to have a white-fleshed nectarine (Lord Napier) which produced a few gorgeous fruit before succumbing to peach leaf curl. It has now been replaced by a fig.
I dream of growing another Lord Napier and an apricot in the greenhouse, but right now it’s full of tomatoes and peppers. Where would they go? In our rainy summers the tomatoes are too succeptible to blight to be outside.
Thanks for this, I`ll pass it along to my wife! Just the other night she cut into a peach without checking if it was ripe it was like an apple ;)
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