Peaches

Rare & Heritage Fruit Cultivars #8

C. Thornton

Of all the deciduous tree fruit varieties, the peach is ranked third in global economic importance after the apple and the pear.
This handbook lists and describes around 230 existing and ‘lost’ heritage peach cultivars, to help you choose those you would prefer to grow. It gives fascinating insights into the world of peaches, and some surprising facts about this delicious queen of fruits including, for each variety, the history, visual description, flavour, flesh characteristics, skin colour, type of pit or stone, chill and pollination requirements, and uses. An indispensable handbook for the peach enthusiast.

This book is one of a series written for ‘backyard farmers’ of the 21st century. It focuses on rare and heritage fruit in Australia, although it includes much information of interest to fruit enthusiasts around the world.

‘Heritage’ or ‘heirloom’ fruits such as old-fashioned varieties of apple, quince, fig, plum, peach and pear are increasingly popular due to their diverse flavours, excellent nutritional qualities and other desirable characteristics. They are the legacy of our ancestors; living heirlooms, part of humanity’s horticultural, vintage and culinary inheritance. During the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries fruit diversity was huge, but in modern supermarkets only a limited range of commercial fruit varieties is available to consumers.
To pick a tree-ripened heritage fruit from your own back yard and bite into it is to experience the taste of fresh food as our forefathers knew it.

Heritage, heirloom and rare fruit enthusiasts across the world are now reviving our horticultural legacy by renovating old orchards and identifying ‘lost’, unusual and historic fruit varieties. The goal is to make a wide range of unique fruit trees available again to the home gardener.
This series of handbooks aims to help.