Cooked peaches freeze well. I wouldn't freeze them uncooked as they break up and go mushy.
'Canning', as you folk call it (bottling over here), is to me the tastiest and prettiest way of preserving the harvest.
Peach chutney's good.
I've never had peach jam and it may need extra pectin, but I'm sure it's delicious.
Peaches soaked in liquor (look up 'rumtopf')
Lucky you, I wish I had extra peaches to play with!

Peach jam

Peach butter

Canned peach halves and slices

You can can the peach juice, too.

peach ice cream...

Canning is probably the best method of preserving them, but I find it to be a lot of work.

Congratulations on the production. My Reliance produced 160 last year and well in excess of 200 this year, it's a 5th or 6th leaf tree. All those fruit are not dinky little things BTW. Get ready for a lot of fruit if you manage the tree well, the weather is right and the critters leave you alone!

Almost all of our fruit is juiced, frozen and consumed over the following years' time along with other fruit juices. Darned tasty juice and FAR cheaper than anything I could buy. Sorry to say only the misses knows how many gallons are in the freezer from this year's crop.

Please tell us how you juice and freeze the juice. I have been looking online for that information. Or send a link.

I slice peaches in half, remove the pit and freeze raw. They are great in smoothies and frozen yogurt. Also, when fresh they can be mashed up and made into fruit leather in a dehydrator.

Clint0

That fruit leather would be a very good idea. Its expensive to buy. I should really invest in a dehydrator. I only have about 50 peaches this year, and they've been ripening on the slow side, so we've mostly been eating them.

I had to purchase peaches because our tree didn't produce very well & any peaches & slits in them.

I used a 1/2 bushel to make peach butter (from the ball blue book), everyone loves that, and it doesn't take up my freezer space. It's good on toast and icecream.

I had a few leftover peaches so googled pork & peaches. There were a few recipes that used 18-20 peaches for each 4-6# of pork. It was a little different twist from apple sauce & pork.

Brendasue

If you enjoyed the peach pie, put up a few in the freezer for the long dark months of winter!

Prepare the filling as usual and line a pie plate with aluminum foil. Add the filling and cover with more foil, crimping the edges together. Freeze. When it firms up, you can take it out of the pie plate and put it in a plastic bag to store in the freezer.

When you're longing for a spot of summer sunshine, prepare pie crust dough, slide in the frozen pie, top with more dough (or lattice, etc.) and bake as usual. It may take about 15 min longer but it will bake up just fine.

I do this when the season is coming to a close and the guy at the Farmer's Market tells me "two more weeks!!"

Steve,

This pie idea sounds brilliant. My wife suggested that I prepare pies like Mrs. Smith, but then I didn't know to what extent to cook them. This sounds even better to freeze it and make pie crust later.

Give them away. Most people are delighted to have fresh peaches. Its not like you are trying to give away Zuchini. They don't necessarily have to be your best friend, either.

Peach jam. It takes time, but on the other hand, its not difficult, or demanding of good cooking skills. You can give that stuff away too.

You guys are almost tempting me to try planting another peach tree, after having the last three die! I remember helping my mom dip peaches in first boiling water, then cold water to get the skins to just slip right off. They were very easy to can that way. She would buy the peaches in lugs at the grocery store and then can them for our large family.
Northwoodswis

100 peaches in a month is not a lot, even for a single person. I have no tree, but I am eating 6-8 a day. They are in their prime and I am not interested in other lesser fruits.

Wish I would have counted them all this year. On my 1st peach tree 5 years ago I had 17 peaches, 11 the next year. It was an unhealthy tree, so I cut it down. I think it actually died before I cut it down from -31F two nights in the winter.

I had no idea I could get about 100 peaches from a 3rd year Reliance. I picked about 25 - 30 peaches tonight. I took one of our contributor's advice, and filled two pie tins with peach filling from the weekend haul; I still have the ones I picked tonight to deal with.

I have two other trees that should bear fruit in coming years.

I attended FSU and tripped back to Iowa for the summers. Stopped in Alabama at a fruit stand 30 years ago and had my first fresh peach when I was about 24. It was incredible.

I had no idea these could be grown in our climate until I started experimenting a few years ago. Then I thought how nice it might be to buy an acre and plant peaches and have my daughter care for them and sell them at a Farmers Market thinking if I acted then she would be about 15 when she started marketing. A fresh tree-ripened peach should bring a good price in Iowa as the supply would be low. Lucky me I didn't buy an acre of them before I lost the two I had a few years ago. I know they are not commercially viable here, but what a good project it would have been as far as labor, and marketing for a young person. Might still be good for her as she approaches college, or attends college. I now have 3 trees. We could sell a few at the Farmers Market in a year or two when the other trees come into production.

Northwoodswis4, are you in Northern Wisconsin? Did your mom have peach trees, or were they strictly store bought? You would not believe the difference between tree-ripened and store bought. Reliance is a good tasting peach. I think it is not quite as good as those big fresh Alabama peaches I had, but very, very nearly as good.

You might try removing the skin on some, then slice and freeze with a touch of sugar. To me, a frozen peach tastes as close to a fresh peach as you can actually get without it being fresh. They do get soft after thawing, but then isn't a good peach soft anyway? They're still wonderful on a piece of angel food cake (homemade or mix made with a few drops of almond extract, not the tasteless little bricks of rubbery sponge you get in the store).

Over the years I've found this way of freezing peaches to be easy and tasty: Mix sliced peaches with 1/4 c. sugar and 1 tablespoon of orange juice CONCENTRATE per 2 cups of sliced peaches. Freeze in Ziplock-type bags.

When ready to eat in winter, place in microwave for one minute; break apart into two portions and microwave again for 30 seconds. Portions to be eaten should remain partially frozen. However, with this method of using the o.j. concentrate, left-overs remain palatable the next day.

With peaches (tomatoes and many others) I essentially clean the skin with a brush cloth and water, just cut them in half to remove the pit, put the peach sections with skin into the blender, blend, a few minutes later pour it into clean clear plastic bags, double or triple wrap and tie, place in freezer after writing a description with black sharpie pen. You can easily defrost quickly in the microwave or overnight in the refrigerator. The puree can be eaten as is like apple sauce, mixed in coffee or tea, icecream, make jams, etc. They keep up to a couple years in a -20F freezer . Much less work/time than canning.

If you want to remove the skins first a blanching technique is probably easiest where the peach is placed in boiling hot water ~ 20 seconds or less (pot no stove) , then placed in
in ice cold water ~10 seconds (use side sink filled with water and ice). The skins fall off.

I give away a lot of peaches too. Sometimes i go to the farmers market and trade my tree ripe "real peaches" for other real home grown picked fresh produce with the vendors.