The Promise of Home Grown Stonefruit

Stonefruit season has arrived again. At least according to the supermarkets, that is. I bought some early season nectarines this morning and honestly, they’re hard enough for Andrew Symonds to whack for six over the straight boundary at the Gabba. The kids tried one though and loved it, so in the interests of fairness, I’ve sliced the cheek off a piece of fruit tonight just to give it a go. I may as well have eaten an early Granny Smith. The nectarine was crunchy, sour, dry, and lacking even a hint of the melting sweetness I crave.

Why must every piece of fruit have the texture of a crisp apple? Is this trend toward conformity a ploy of the food marketing boffins or is it driven by the demand of consumers who’ve never tasted a premium, home-grown piece of fruit? Are we not mature enough to enjoy a range of textures and flavours, like we do with other types of food? Imagine how bland dining out would be if every vegetable on the plate had the texture of raw carrots and every cut of meat tasted like a prawn. You’d be bored stiff.

Let me use the poor old peach as a means of illustrating my point. Big commercial growers and their customers, the supermarkets and fruit shops, are highly unlikely to ever sell a properly ripe peach. Why? A properly ripe peach is soft. It will travel poorly, and just a bit of pressure from a neighbouring piece of fruit will bruise the flesh and allow rot to quickly set it, rendering the fruit unsaleable. Add to that issue the furriness of a peach’s skin. It’s never worried me, but lots of people seem to be so put off by a bit of peach fuzz that they prefer to eat a nectarine, even though a nectarine is simply a smooth skinned peach.

One of the great joys of growing your own fruit is that you are invited to enter a world of diversity. Unlike much of our society, which seems intent on becoming “progressively” more homogenous, home grown fruit promises variety. It enables the home grower to include a few different trees to extend not just the range of flavours, but the length of the harvest. If space is limited, even a single tree offers variety by enabling the grower to pick fruit at various stages of ripeness. I’ll take a choice like this any day over the dictates of a massive supermarket chain.

If you share my enthusiasm for home grown stone fruit, here are my picks of some of the best varieties for the backyard.

Apricots

For centuries the heirloom variety ‘Moorpark’ has been a favourite with both home and commercial growers, and in my view it’s still the pick of the crop. Exquisite flavour and a melting texture. ‘Trevatt’ was bred in Victoria as an all purpose variety that is good bottled, dried, or eaten fresh. Provide well drained soil and a position protected from spring frosts.

Peaches

‘Anzac’ is an Australian bred heirloom that crops early, bears heavily, and features white flesh that makes for very good eating. For those wanting to try their hand at preserving, the variety par excellence is ‘Golden Queen’, though any late ripening, clingstone variety will perform well. Why grow an ornamental flowering peach when you can grow a fruiting variety?

Nectarines

A forgotten variety in the commercial drive for visual perfection, ‘Goldmine’ isn’t much of a looker, yet its white flesh tastes superb. It has the added bonus of being resistant to the fungal disease Peach Leaf Curl. The variety ‘Fantasia’ sounds like a nightclub but it’s actually the world’s most widely grown nectarine, which says something about the quality. All nectarines are self-fertile.

Plums

I’m a sucker for the old European plums like ‘Greengage’ and ‘Coe’s Golden Drop’, considering them to be handsome trees with unbeatable fruit. If I were to put sentimentality aside though, I’d recommend Japanese plums, a distinct species, as the best plum for the average home grower. If a single tree is required ‘Santa Rosa’ is the pick because it doesn’t require a pollinator, but if you have space for a second tree ‘Elephant Heart’ produces blood plums with a delicious cherry flavour.

Cherries

For those living in the higher chill parts of the Downs, cherries are an excellent crop for the backyard. ‘Stella’ is my pick, being self-fertile, resistant to cracking (a problem with cherries), and a slightly dwarfing tree. Another favourite is ‘Napoleon’, an old French cherry that produces delicious yellow-red fruit in time for Christmas. Pollinate with Stella.

First published in The Chronicle 28th November 2009. Photo by Justin Russell.

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