Peaches

A small-medium size peach, very similar to the River peach, but slightly firmer and sweeter, freestone. Good for bottling, jam and wine. Reliable heavy cropper. Ex Matakohe, Phil Hodges. White flesh.
 

A peach sent in by a member that has turned out to be beauty.  It looks and tastes a lot like an apricot, with very orange sweet flesh. Ripe in early Feb after the River and Christina peaches. it’s a beauty for bottling and drying as well as eating. Amazing flavour.

This variety has red skin, golden flesh and freestone with red streaks around the stone. It has an outstanding flavour, excellent texture and is very juicy. It is an outstanding Dalmation cultivar and originally came from Ruawai. Red leaves on the tree.

Red Leaf version of Blackboy, very ornamental, but also crops well.

Extremely disease resistant peach, heavy cropper of small very sweet exquisitely flavoured golden fruit. They are the prolific old original Golden Queens that grew wild over much of Northland. Clingstone.

This is a peach collected on a trip around the far North with David Austen and over the past 10 years has proved to be a beauty in my orchard. Late ripening, disease resistant, very sweet, firm full of flavour, flesh. Clingstone. Excellent dessert peach. Pale skin red blush. Huge Flavour, excellent cropper.

This peach was given to me many years ago by Ham Worsfold. I couldn’t believe it when it ripened early this year on the very day of his wife’s funeral. We will grow the stones and pass the trees back to their grandchildren! One of the real joys of being a gardener is being able to do such things. Whenever there is a birth or a death I look around to see what is flowering or fruiting to gift or remember that person by… these are the rituals that help bring back the sacred… Anyway this is an old fashioned thick skinned peach Ham called his Maori peach, and he used to say you had to eat it standing naked in the bath!!?? It looks like an apricot when ripe with an orangey skin and red blush, with very sweet juicy flesh.

This variety is large with white flesh, has a good flavour but is not very sweet. It is a small tree, grows true to seed and a reliable cropper. Weeping form, white flesh.

This variety has honey coloured flesh and skin, transparent honey coloured flesh when ripe with a red blush. Dessert. 

Very early flowering and ripening peach ripe from late November - early Dec. Small white fleshed peach, red blush, extremely heavy, reliable cropper, fruit often needs thinning to avoid breaking branches, freestone.
 

A large, juicy peach with outstanding golden flesh. A healthy tree. A fantastic Christmas peach!
Ex Kaipara Harbour, from original orchard planted 1800's by missionary White.
 

River Peaches are the ones that set me off on this whole journey. They are disease resistant, easy to grow and grow true to seed They are prolific croppers of sweet medium sized, green skin with a red blush, white fleshed, free stone fruit.
 

These trees will forever remind me of the stories and the dream of the Kaumatua (Makaera) who welcomed us onto his marae at Waiatea on the Kaipara and told us the story of his grandparent’s garden around the marae on the edge of the Kaipara. Usual thing… large gardens, potato, kumara, kamo kamo, ruruhau, figs peaches citrus apples quinces and plums. His dream is to see the gardens once again around the marae and the Kaipara; my dream too. We rummaged around under the last three remaining peach trees and found a few stones, most of which grew. I haven’t tasted the fruit but they will be a variation on the River peach theme and stand for me as symbols for the dream of replanting the gardens!