![]() ![]() In the chilly months of late fall, there’s something sublimely satisfying about serving ducks our family hunts along the Bear River that I smoke over cherrywood trimmed from orchards just up the hill from our duck blind. And the happy by-product of the very aggressive winter pruning that results in productive fruit trees come summer means that smoker geeks like me (guilty, as charged) can buy bundles of local fruit woods like cherry and apple along the Fruit Way directly from the orchards. Hale peaches are parked outside stands in September, truckloads of late-variety peaches like O’Henry and Ryan’s Sun trundle up and down Highway 89 through early October, and apples and winter squash are usually available until mid-November. In early August the peach season really gets rolling, with Red Fremont (a great freestone peach for grilling), Sierra Gem and Flaming Fury arriving right around the time you’ll see signs along the Fruit Way declaring “Last day for cherries!” and “Berries aplenty!” Flatbed trailers filled with bushels of fragrant softball-sized Sun Prince and J.H. The first peaches show up at farm stands by late July, with Red Haven a popular early variety. Follow your nose in August when the Anaheim pepper crop is at its peak: the fragrant and fiery smell of propane-fueled chili roasting drums inevitably makes me nostalgic for time spent in Arizona and New Mexico during chili harvest, as do the taco carts that pop up along the Fruit Way around the same time. Case in point, you’ll find evidence of the latter year-round with the fierce competition for the best blackberry and raspberry concrete milkshakes at the region’s many independent burger joints. This region of northern Utah is an almost-perfect growing environment for the famed peaches cultivated here, for sure, but also for other tree fruits like apricots, plums, cherries (Utah is second in the nation for tart cherry production), vegetables galore, apples and pears of infinite variety, and melons and berries of all sorts. The rich soils here could also sustain dry crops without irrigation - those dependent upon scarce rainfall and moisture-trapping soils - like winter wheat, which fills the many granary silos that you’ll see all along the Wasatch Front corridor. Earthen dams, reservoirs, and a complex system of irrigation canals supplied water for livestock ventures, vegetable farms, and a multitude of fruit orchards. Brigham City was founded by Latter-Day Saint emigrants along Box Elder Creek to build mills and other water-dependent industries and for the ability to ramp up agricultural production quickly. Like the ancestral indigenous people who arrived in the region more than 10,000 years ago through to the Shoshoni communities that were militarily displaced from the area in the late 19th century, 1850s emigrants were drawn by the diverse hunting and plant gathering along the region’s mountain foothills, river valleys and bounteous marshlands. Getting Back to the Roots of the Fruit Way Long story short: This is a perfect spot for peaches. “If you talk to them, they will always tell you a story.” “Food is about making an interaction with ingredients,” said acclaimed chef and humanitarian José Andrés. And the rich soil from alluvial remnants of glacial prehistory set the literal groundwork for the area’s fertile landscape. Here, the winter season chills fruit trees for enough hours to ensure optimal spring growth, and the summers are hot and relatively long at this latitude. This narrow swath of agricultural bounty is situated in the shadows of Black Mountain, Willard Peak and Ben Lomond Peak to the east and the basin of the Bear River Valley and Great Salt Lake stretching far to the west. ![]() In 1907, Summer Gleason of Kaysville, Utah and Stark Brothers Nurseries of Louisiana, Mo., introduced the Gleason Early Elberta to offer a one-to-two week jump on the Elberta peach harvest.įor many Utahns, this search for Early Elbertas is well-nigh laser-focused along the regionally self-proclaimed route known as “Utah’s Famous Fruit Way.” It’s an agricultural corridor cultivated for generations between Perry and Willard along both sides of Old Highway 89, a 10-mile stretch of state-maintained road running south from Brigham City. And that prolific peach prospered - along with dozens of other peach varieties - in northern Utah. Rumph (who named the Early Crawford and Chinese Cline cross after his wife). Called “America’s Favorite Peach” by the Arbor Day Foundation, the original Elberta varietal was developed in 1875 by Georgian Samuel H. Early Elbertas are prized for their versatility for both out-of-hand eating and for canning, thanks to consistently fine-grained, sweet yellow flesh with a light red blush and a free stone.
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