Help! Problem with Canning Peaches Update Post 4

[KatWrangler]

We bought a bunch of stuff a the Farmer's Market on Friday. We got the 2 case of tomatoes done, but didn't get to the peaches yesterday like we planned.

Anyhow, I am doing this this morning and alot of them are molded. Sigh.... Can I still can these or do I need to throw the entire case? I was going to just take the skins off them (in hot water and then ice bath method), then process them as sliced peaches in light sugar syrup.

What to do?

[ASusan]

Can you cut out the moldy parts? As you put them into the pot (before you remove the skins)?

I'm going by (long-term) memory here...blanch first, then remove skins, then cut up to put in can?

For some reason, I'm thinking that it would be better for the mold to not even go into the blanching water, but I don't know if that's necessarily the case.

[KatWrangler]

I am washing them first. I could cut out the bad parts before putting them in the boiling water.

I left a VM and an email for the County Extension office too.

Okay, thanks!

[KatWrangler]

I talked with my County Extension Office. I have to throw them away. She said it would be too risky. Sigh....

[cristeen]

If i'm planning to cook them, i just cut off the bad parts. Bruises, bird pecks, insect damage, even mold. For the average home gardener, using only the perfect fruit would be terribly wasteful.

[KristyDi]

Originally Posted by KatWrangler

I talked with my County Extension Office. I have to throw them away. She said it would be too risky. Sigh....

No way! I think there's some CYA there.

I say go through the case, toss the bad ones and see what's left. I might not can them, but I'd sure see if I could use them up. Can you freeze some? Maybe for smoothies or winter cobblers.

[Chicky2]

We recently picked around 400 peaches from one of our trees. I just couldn't get thru them fast enough. After the first couple of days some of them would start to go. I do toss the moldy ones, because mold on the outside of a fruit means that there could be some icky stuff inside that you can't actually see yet. Bruises, spots, imperfections, yes, I use after cutting the bad parts off. We had quite a few like that.

Sorry you lost them.. I recently had to dump 80 pounds or so of freshly picked sand plums. the day I was going to start processing them we had a death here and obviously the plums weren't so important. We tossed them out where we're hoping they'll grow a thicket for us. It is HARD to toss that much fruit, esp. after you sweat like crazy and get stuck a bazillion times by thorns while picking it.

[KatWrangler]

I did pick through them. Not much was left to keep, so I did put them in the dumpster.

[Chicky2]

I'm sorry you had to toss 'em. I hope you kept a few to plant!