There's a glorious glut of stone fruit in the orchard but the accompanying fruit flies are really the pits, writes country gardener Amy Willesee.

Nothing says summer like the rosy-pink blush and drippy-sweet juice of a ripe peach. The 80-year-old peach trees in our orchard are still going strong and their gift to us each January is a tumbling abundance. In fact, when we first moved to the farm on the NSW South Coast, our love affair with the fruit so perfectly encapsulated the mood that Mark added the song Peaches by the Presidents of the United States of America to his iPod: “Movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches...”

The thing is, it hasn't turned out to be as peachy as we'd hoped. The first problem is the glut factor. The entire harvest tends to be ready within about a week and you need to eat them within two days of picking. Being an old variety, they don't last like modern cultivars.

We could happily overlook that and preserve the excess, if it weren't for the dreaded fruit fly. One reason the peaches spoil so quickly is because embedded in the ripening flesh are fruit-fly eggs. It takes only a day or two at the right temperature for these to hatch and grow into wriggling white larvae, which leave a gooey brown trail in their wake.

I'm personally not too keen on playing the lottery that is biting into one of our peaches. I prefer to slice and dice. But this seems to be a generational attitude. My mother-in-law has no qualms about biting into a peach au naturel. Mark is on the next rung down: he'll use his teeth but scrape away any maggots and goop with his fingers. The kids, on the other hand, practically need lab reports to prove their slice is blemish-free.

In our attempts at being responsible fruit growers, we have made various attempts to eliminate fruit fly. One of the reasons we put chickens in the orchard was so they'd hoover up the larvae, which eventually fall from the fruit into the soil, along with spoilt fruit. Similarly, we've fattened pigs with all the excess fruit. I suspect, however, that we didn't have enough birds or pigs.

One year Mark tried putting a paper bag over each fruit bud to prevent female fruit flies from injecting their eggs into the developing fruit, but a friend doing a photo shoot in the orchard removed all the bags just as the peaches were ripening, so the experiment was declared null and void. This year Mark applied an organic fruit-fly bait, but there was so much rain he's not sure the trees got enough of it.

Two other growers we know, far more experienced, have given up on stone fruit owing to the pest, and I feel I may follow. Instead of planting more peaches, I have taken their advice and planted alternatives such as sapotes and custard apples. Once our old trees give up the ghost, I'll still enjoy peaches in summer, but I'll do it by supporting the peach farm down the highway.

Peachy keen

To make the most of the stone-fruit harvest, try turning fresh peaches into a delicious tart or pudding. You can also poach them in rosewater syrup, create a peach Melba with raspberry sauce and ice-cream, or serve a simple dessert of peaches and cream. An excess of peaches can be sliced and frozen until you have time to whip up jam or make peach wine.

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