The Black Boy Peach - a Kiwi thing

 Black boy peaches ripening in the Eco Garden

In a week or two the peaches on my self-sown blackboy peach trees will be ready to eat raw – and to start turning into pies, tarts, chutney, sauce, icecream... My big and bonny trees grew from stones that survived the composting process. It was clear from their leaves when they were small that they would turn into peach trees, and I let them grow on where they had planted themselves to see whether they would be a tasty variety (most peaches do not come true from seed). Both of them turned out to be blackboy peaches. Within three years of self-sowing they had already started to flower and fruit, and now they are both at least 4 metres tall and have heavy crops. Unlike my white and yellow-fleshed peach trees from the garden centre they don't get leaf curl or other serious diseases, and all in all I can't think of a more trouble-free and productive fruit tree.

It is also, as I discovered when trying to find out more about this wonder tree, rather a mystery. The name Black Boy Peach (hereafter BBP) seems to be a totally New Zealand thing, and New Zealand also seems to be the current world capital of the tree/fruit itself. I found various claims on line that the BBP is really the Peche de Vigne (vineyard peach) of France, but the French language Wikipedia entry on peaches says that such peaches are not exclusively dark-red, like the BBP, but rather have been so named because they ripen at the same time as grapes and are planted (or self-sow) around vineyards where they act as an indicator for pest and diseases that might harm the vines, especially mildew. This information is seconded, in English, by Colin Elliot, an English gardener in France, who says that a red-fleshed form of a peche de vigne has been commercialised in Soucieu-en-Jarrest, self-styled Capital of Peche de Vigne, south-west of Lyon.

I would dearly love to know if this is anything like the BBP we grow in New Zealand. Almost everything else about the BBP that I can find on on-line is contradictory (it will/will not grow true from seed; it is/is not good to eat fresh; it is/is not better cooked; it is/is not disease free). All I can say about about my own experience of growing and eating the BBP in Banks Peninsula conditions is that it does appear to come true from seed, that it doesn't get the diseases my other peach trees do, that it is delicious fresh if you pick it when perfectly ripe, and that you can cook it in lots of tasty ways. (Such as Roasted Blackboy PeachChutney and Vegan Black Boy Peach Cake.)