Harvey’s Early Yellow Peach

 A few years ago, my friend Harvey Correia discovered a large branch producing yearly peaches on his old peach tree. He purchased the tree over 25 years ago as Last Chance and recalls that he might have grafted it with Fairtime, both of which are late season peaches. The tree still produces at least one type of late peaches. I need to go back later in the season and taste those. He suspects that this branch with early yellow peaches that ripen in early June might be coming from the rootstock or could be a sport of the grafted variety. Unless we find out that this is known cultivar, we are going to call this branch Harvey’s Early Yellow peach.

The fruits are slightly flattened, medium in size, red and spotted. The flesh is yellow, melting, partially or almost freestone. The flavor is excellent with high sugar and high acid. I tend to think that it’s a Lovell seedling (the rootstock shoot). The Lovell fruits I had before were somewhat similar in the flavor, but those were ripening later in the season.