Peach Season in Pennsylvania

Selection and Storage

According to Penn State Extension's Let's Preserve: Peaches, Apricots, Nectarines, when buying peaches, select ones that are firm to slightly soft, and avoid extremely small, hard, bruised, wrinkled, or fermented-smelling peaches. An unripe peach can be placed in a closed paper bag for 1 to 3 days to ripen, and once ripe, a peach will keep in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. When buying many yellow peaches to can, you will need to allow a few days for the peaches to ripen before processing.

Varieties

Peaches can be categorized as freestone or clingstone: freestone peaches have flesh that easily separates from the pit, whereas clingstone peaches have flesh that tightly clings to the pit. When it comes to canning, yellow freestone peach varieties such as Glenglo, Ernie's Choice, Cresthaven, John Boy, Loring, Redhaven, and Sunhigh work best.

Preservation

If planning to can peaches for preservation, be sure to only use yellow-flesh peaches: white-flesh peaches are a low-acid food, which means that water bath canning and atmospheric steam canning aren't sufficient to eliminate the risk of Clostridium Botulinum poisoning; and, unfortunately, there is not a research-tested recipe for processing white-flesh peaches in a pressure canner. The only safe way to preserve white-flesh peaches is to freeze them—information on this process can be found in the Penn State Extension's Let's Preserve: Peaches Apricots, Nectarines.

Some tested peach canning recipes you may enjoy from the National Center for Home Food Preservation are:

• Peach Jam with powdered pectin
• Peach and Orange Marmalade
• Peach and Apple Salsa

While many people love to buy peaches while they are in season and eat them fresh, yellow-flesh peaches can be safely enjoyed year-round by water bath canning, freezing, or drying them. Peaches freeze nicely when ripe quality fruit is washed, peeled, and packed using a syrup or sugar pack. If you would like information on freezing peaches, you can refer to Penn State Extension's Let's Preserve: Freezing Fruits.

Sources

1. LaBorde, L., Zepp, M., Hirneisen, A. (2023, May 22) Let's Preserve: Freezing Fruits. Penn State Extension.

2. National Center for Home Food Preservation. (2005, June) Peach Jam with powdered pectin. National Center for Home Food Preservation.

3. National Center for Home Food Preservation. (2005, June) Peach-Orange Marmalade without added pectin. National Center for Home Food Preservation. 

4.  National Center for Home Food Preservation (2003, August). Peach Apple Salsa. National Center for Home Food Preservation.

5. Zepp, M, Hirneisen, A, LaBorde, L. (2023, April 13) Let's Preserve: Peaches, Apricots, Nectarines. Penn State Extension.