Your source for fruit and vegetable news

By Bobbie Whitehead

Three years ago, J.M. Erwin began selling peaches from the back of his truck.

Word spread about Erwin’s quality peaches, and now he has plenty of repeat customers driving up to his farm to buy them.

The Pascagoula, Miss., native came to the area with his job 15 years ago and liked it so much that he and his wife, Janet, decided to move to the area permanently.

But Erwin’s interest in growing peaches developed after a visit to a peach festival in the state. The peaches at the festival impressed Erwin so much that he decided to grow his own, and since that visit, he began buying peach trees from a nursery in Pennsylvania.

Now, Erwin has 250 trees in a peach orchard that some folks tell him produce the best-tasting peaches they’ve ever had, he said.

Nestled on 5206 Ducktown Road in Zuni, Erwin works daily during peach season, which for the fruit-bearing trees in Virginia typically begins at the first of July.

Right now, 100 of his trees produce ripe peaches that he sells to customers who come from all around. Erwin’s built up a following by word of mouth. With so much interest in the peaches, Erwin also planted 150 additional peach trees, which in a couple of years will increase his crop. And while he grows peaches, his wife, he said, tests a number of peach recipes with him usually being the taste tester.

About a year ago, Erwin retired from construction work.

“We’ve enjoyed it here,” said Erwin, whose wife, Janet, spends her time cultivating a variety of crops in the couple’s garden. “I had to retire to keep up with the crops.But we’ve enjoyed it.”

When Erwin first began selling his peaches, he sold them from the back of his truck at markets or wherever he could set up. Once people began to know him for the peaches, they began to stop by his house, he said.

“We always sold all of our peaches by word of mouth,” he said.

Erwin Orchards, the name of his farm, grows six different varieties of peaches. Customers can buy large sizes and smaller sized peaches, all sweet and juicy.

While crop specialists note that the Tidewater area climate isn’t conducive to growing good quality peaches, Erwin said he’s done well. And he works daily to keep the trees cared for to enable good peaches since 1996. Over the years, Erwin said he’s slowly replaced trees that died out.

“You’ve got to have consistency and persistence to avoid missing the spraying times,” Erwin said.

When Erwin isn’t caring for his peaches, he and his wife return to Mississippi to help family and friends who lost everything after Hurricane Katrina struck the area.

“It was sad to go back home and see so many people with so much damage,” said Irwin, who also lost property after the hurricane but just had to let it go.

Each day, Erwin begins picking peaches and caring for the orchard at 7:30 a.m. and continues when the sun sets or by 8:30 p.m., he said. Although Erwin Orchards is not a "pick-your-own" orchard, customers can select which peaches they want from cartons set up under a 20-foot by 20-foot tent on Erwin’s property. Erwin has a scale and charges customer $1.50 per pound for peaches. Customers can also buy an 8 ½-pound flat for $12. But that’s not all that Erwin has. Customers can also find blueberries and other fruits and vegetables at the tent, and they can always find about 100 pounds of peaches at the tent at all times, he said.

“It’s an all-day thing to pick peaches and take care of the orchard,” Erwin said. “When peaches come in, I have to sell every day so they don’t go bad.”

Peach growing has increased somewhat in Virginia this year. The National Agricultural Statistics Service shows that Virginia peach growers are forecasted to produce 4,200 tons of peaches this year.

The forecast production shows a significant increase from the 2007 production of 1,600 tons of peaches. Last year, however, peach growers suffered losses after cold temperatures in April along the East Coast damaged peaches, according to NASS.