Market & Garden Report: Peaches & Nectarines

[HOST INTRO] Red Haven, Fire Bright, and Honey Blaze.  Those are just a few of the names of peaches and nectarines hitting area farmers’ markets over the next few weeks.  In this installment of the Market & Garden Report, correspondent Guy Hand takes a look at these juicy late-summer fruits. Kelley: It’s peach season for us right now.  This is our first main variety that we just got into this week, this is Red Haven. Hand: That’s Ron Kelley of Kelley Orchards in Weiser.  Red Haven is an old peach variety, the kind that have fallen out of favor with big producers. Kelley: Some people love to can it, most people just love to eat it down here.  Hand: So what do they taste like?  Kelley: Taste delicious, juicy and sweet and flavorful. Hand: Biting into a ripe peach and having juice dribble down your chin is a summertime rite of passage.  But juicy peaches are getting harder to find.  Big producers say consumers prefer newer, firmer peach varieties.  Kelley isn’t so sure. Kelley: I don’t know that they like firmer peaches, but they get firmer peaches because they have to be shipped longer distances.  And that’s the beauty of [...]