Dehydrating peaches

As I mentioned last year, I lost my crop in 2015 due to a late frost.  In late March that year, my temp dropped to a horrifying 23 degrees at ground level one night, wiping out both the blueberries and peaches, which were in full bloom.  I tried spraying water on everything but the hose froze, so I gave up.  I later found out that a few Belle of Georgia peaches survived at the top of the tree.  The killing cold was only at ground level.  However, by the time I noticed them, they were long-neglected in terms of spraying (for disease and insects) and did not mature well.  A few blueberries made it, too, probably due to buds not being open at the time of the freeze.  But I got just a handful (literally) off of five bushes.

This year was back to normal, at least for one of the trees.  As I indicated last year, my peaches were on dwarf rootstock, which various sources have indicated don't have long lifespans.  This was the trees' 16th year in the ground, and the yellow cling continued a steep decline that began a couple of years ago.  It only yielded five pounds--which were good and eaten fresh (bug free)--and the tree will be turned into firewood this winter. It is pretty much dead at this point.  Alas.  The Belle of Georgia produced about 55 pounds, which is somewhat less than the record year.  BG had some issues with the harvest, too, which I'll detail another time.  But I'll take the 55 pounds and be happy.

I turned the peaches into pie filling mix (at the time of processing, that just means putting five pounds of sliced treated peaches into a bag and freezing), peach preserves (made in a fashion similar to the pear preserves  described recently), peach butter, and I also dehydrated some.

It's the same process I follow with apples.  Slice, treat to prevent darkening, and put on the racks in the dehydrator.  I leave the skins on.  I don't peel unless forced.  The result is a very high-quality product that keeps for a long time.  I still have some dehydrated peaches from my bumper crop a few years ago.

I have also canned peaches--as in sliced and put into syrup--but that is probably my least favorite way of preserving them.  They are okay that way, but it is much less work to dehydrate.