The tree fruit I enjoyed picking most as a boy was Italian prunes. The reasons were that the trees were not big for the fruit could easily be reached with a ten foot ladder, there was no fussiness about picking the fruit with stems on, the fruit usually grew clustered together so 8 to 12 prunes could be picked in three handfuls, and they were easy to munch on, just don’t eat too many!

There were two prune growers that usually hired me, they were Wally Smith and Ron Bonnett. Sometimes Wally allowed me to use the Kangaroo, but most picking was done by the ladder. I was faster with the ladder and safer. It was too easy to run over something with the Kangaroo while not paying attention, not paying attention was a hazard of being a teenager.

Two weeks ago I wrote about an Edmonton fruit peddler who sold fruit produce by an unknown Keremeos grower. Today we went to the Farmers Market and bought pears, peaches and Italian prunes from that same peddler.

Again there was a lineup for his product. We went early so he still had plenty of product left. The peaches were well filled out but still hard and the prunes were a good size and turning purple.

When we got home, we tried the prunes. They were delicious! The flesh was firm, a golden yellow in color. One wasn’t enough, so I ate a second one, that wasn’t enough so I ate a third. I decided I better stop at four or suffer a side effect later.

I’m hoping that the Keremeos peaches are better than the last two batches of peaches we bought from the vendors selling Oliver fruit. The first bad batch had 3 out of 5 punky peaches. Then we got 5 more free ones from the same vendor and all of them were punky too.

I looked online and found an article by the University of Minnesota Extension Department about punky ( mealy ) peaches. It said that peaches kept in storage between 38 F and 51 F or 3 C and 11 C, will be punky.

It seems to me, that I remember the air temperature in the Oliver Co-operative Growers Packing House was always kept cool, for the powers that be knew the fruit coming in needed to cool down to slow the ripening process.

It looks to me that the fruit peddlers are either unaware of this fruit storage problem or they don’t care what kind of fruit they sell to the unsuspecting customers such as myself. The consumer is hard won and people have to get a fair measure for their buck or they will go elsewhere.

Punky fruit is going to hurt the Oliver peach grower. Everyone I talked to today about punky peaches agreed that they did not like that product. If the Keremeos grower is producing quality fruit, is he storing and transporting it at the proper temperatures?

The proof is still in the pudding, when our recently purchased peaches ripen, then we will know if the Keremeos grower is doing it right or not. I hope he is doing it right, for I would certainly rather buy his product than buy that disappointment we were getting from the Oliver area.

The Oliver fruit grower shipping peaches to Edmonton, has lost our patronage due to his inability to deal with the temperature problems which the peddler is likely responsible for. These small operators are at a disadvantage for they seem to be unable to deliver the quality of fruit which the co-operative packing houses can produce.

The packing houses also ship with large transportation companies so the product traveling to the consumer arrives in a timely fashion while being in proper temperature controlled storage.

A final note on the prunes, here in Edmonton, Italian prunes are called prune-plums. The grocery stores call them prune-plums and they are known by the general public as prune-plums. I still call them prunes. The ones that are dried are called dried prunes, is that explanation confusing?

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