An educated person's life experiences, food and wine events and encounters.

Fruit Trees, Neapolitan Minestrone, Pizza Recipe

Italian Orchards

Our second day in the Province of Naples was a bit different from that of the average tourist. We had a very light breakfast with Melina and her immediate family, Peppino her husband and their two boys Pierro and Giovanni.

After breakfast Peppino took us on a tour of his family’s orchards. It was explained to us

Italian Peaches

that each fruit has its own time for ripening and picking. Each variety of fruit has its own time frame from budding flower and baring fruit.

It was peach picking time. Each peach tree ripened about 1/8th of its fruit per day. Therefore, every day all the trees had fruit to be picked until all the peaches ripened and were picked. The ripe peaches were huge, about the size of grapefruits. They were sweet with a slightly al dente bite from skin to pit.

Some of the fruit was hauled to various parts of Italy. Most of the fruit was sent to canning factories. The immature fruit that fell to the ground was placed into antique root cellars, for cold storage ripening.

We went to the orchards where the trees’ fruit was picked, and then to the orchard where the fruit had yet to mature. Most interesting was that in between each row of trees vegetables were growing. Every inch of the land was utilized.

It was explained to us that each fruit had its own growing time frame. While the farmer waited for the fruit to mature, the vegetables grew and were picked. After the fruit was picked another crop of vegetables were planted.

We were told that the most difficult fruit to harvest were cherries. They would be green one day and then show a little color the next day. The time it took for the cherries to be fully ripened and ready to be harvested changed from season to season. On the morning that the farmer saw one cherry the color of red wine, all the cherries were red. The fruit had to be picked immediately. Literally, a twenty-four hour job, no sleep, no dinnertime.

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