In a previous post I lamented about the amount of time it was taking for my peaches to ripen properly. Saturday morning I decided it was time to call Walter's Fruit Ranch and ask some questions. After all, it had been 9 days and the peaches were still hard as baseballs. Were they ever going to ripen up?
A very helpful woman answered the phone and explained to me that the Elegant Lady variety of peaches don't get soft like many other varieties do. She said the way to test them is to press lightly around the stem area. If that is soft, then they are ready to use. She also said they seem to need more time in the boiling water before they will peel properly.
Taking her advice, I pressed by the stem area and that was definitely soft! So I set up everything for canning once again, left the peaches in the water for 90 seconds, and the skins slipped quite nicely. And they were dead ripe. Whew! The remaining peaches amounted to 4 more quarts. You only see seven in the photo, however, because I used one quart to make a peach cake Friday evening. The 3 jars on the left were cold packed, last Tuesday, and the four on the right were hot packed yesterday. Predictably, the hot packed peaches didn't float up as badly as the cold packed ones did.
The pole beans are maturing, but so far they are not prolific. I am actually grateful for that; I can easily manage to freeze a quart or two at a time. On the other hand, bush beans usually produce so many all at once, a person can get the canning done in just a couple of days. So there are pros and cons to both kinds of beans. I had to get the step ladder out to reach the ones at the top of the poles.
And the first two gladiolus are blooming today! That's always a fun milestone to reach each summer.