We are an agricultural country, but at personal, family level, we are poor at growing fruit for ourselves. We may plant trees on our land or in the garden. Conifers, broadleaves, and bushes of all sorts, but how many are fruit trees or bushes? This, after wiping away the flowing juices from a peach grown by a friend - such a peach that you would need, in the eating, to wear a napkin (well, bib if you like) - around your neck to keep your shirtfront from being drenched.
Yes, there are peaches like that grown here and there in Ireland, but not for the market. They are too delicate anyway. The fact is that of those people who do have fruit gardens, so many are due to the planning and hard work of a previous generation. One family was lucky enough to buy an old house which had a pear espaliered along the outside rear wall of a barn. It was said to be nearly a century old. Probably a huge exaggeration, but it supplied pears of almost unbelievable size and sweetness for many autumns to the new arrivals. It may still be there.
And fruits go out of fashion. One old garden had several damson trees. How many non commercial gardens have even one today? Apple varieties, we know, have died out, and it is not mere nostalgia to say that the flavours do not exist in the new and imported varieties. But, many say, the fruit now coming in from all parts of the world make it unnecessary to have your own. We don't grow cherries in this country, not the sweet eating varieties anyway, and it is a quite magnificent indication of the wonders of transport that, buying cherries the other day, and asking if they were from France or where, to get the answer "From Washington State", that is from the Pacific coast.
That such soft, fast perishing fruit can come so many thousands of miles and still be fresh and enjoyable! But, back to our own gardens. We plant statuesque trees such as oaks or redwoods (if we have space) as a gesture to future generations. For the shorter term, we might think now and then of fruit trees. But remember: mulberries are at their best at 200 years.
Vines are something special. They are best accommodated in a spacious conservatory, where the family can sit at its ease and have its meals, or some of them, under large bunches of Black Hamburg or whatever variety you prefer. They are enduring. One known flourishing vine started off as a six or eight inch cutting in Europe, has grown and flourished, as the family moved and handed on the torch, so to speak, in Wicklow, Connemara and in two Dublin houses.
Back to the peach. It's a Peregrine, in a cold greenhouse. There are possibly several good varieties. But the best is, as described, with juices flowing freely from white flesh.