Daily Quiz for June 24, 2019

[Mike Nolan]

Can you tell whether a peach is freestone or clingstone by looking at the amount of fuzz on it?

[See the full post at: Daily Quiz for June 24, 2019]

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[RiversideLen]

Took a stab at it and got it wrong.

[Joan Simpson]

Got it.

[BakerAunt]

I missed it also.

How does one tell the difference between a freestone and a clingstone peach?

[Italiancook]

BakerAunt, I grew up on an orchard in the north. Our peaches seldom survived the late frosts. During the few, glorious summers we had peaches, my sister and I would eat most of them straight from the trees, taking home only enough for Mom to slice and serve for dinner. We only had a few trees, because parents knew it was an iffy crop because of the weather. Some of our trees were freestone and some were clingstone.

As far as I know, the only way to tell the difference is to cut the peach open along the "crease." If the pit pulls easily out of the half, it's a freestone. Also, if it's a freestone, it's easy to pull the fruit into halves after cut. Clingstones make it difficult to cut the peach into halves, or to do so neatly. The pit clings to the peach.

I have no idea why the adults purchased clingstone trees. Even Mom had a hard time slicing them. The planting of peach trees was an experiment. Maybe including clingstones was part of the research.

[RiversideLen]

Not an expert on this but I thought clingstones were earlier than freestones. So if you want a longer harvest, you'd have some of each.

[skeptic7]

I eat lots of peaches and I can't tell the type of peach from looking at it.

[BakerAunt]

The lady from the honey place at the farmers' market had wonderful organic peaches last year. She told me that there will be none this year due to the late freeze, and she doubts there will be any in the area. I read that the Michigan peaches got hit badly also. Fortunately, I still have peach jam from the batches that I made last year.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by BakerAunt.

[RiversideLen]

My neighbor and I both have a peach tree, neither tree had blossoms this year due to the cold Spring.

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