Most peaches found in the United States have yellow flesh, but many white-flesh peaches are starting to show up in our grocery stores, too. William Woys Weaver, a Mother Earth News contributing editor and author of 100 Vegetables and Where They Came From, thinks ?Saturn' peaches are among the very best of the white-flesh varieties. ?Saturn' peaches have an unusually flat shape, and are named for their resemblance to the rings of Saturn. They're also called 'Donut' or ?Doughnut' peaches. In fact, many supermarkets package the flat peaches in long boxes like those used for doughnuts, and market them as a good-for-you snack food.

So what's so great about ?Saturn' peaches?

1. They taste better than other peaches. They're sweeter, with almond overtones.
2. They are lower in acid than other peaches.
3. The pit doesn't cling to the flesh, so it's easy to pop out with your thumb.
4. The fruit's thin, red skin has little or no fuzz, so it doesn't have to be peeled.
5. Their small size lends itself to being eaten out of hand.
6. The frost-hardy, highly pest- and disease-resistant trees are easy to grow in most areas.
7. You can count on ?Saturn' peach trees to produce an abundant harvest ? up to twice as many peaches as other varieties.
8. The trees bloom earlier in the spring than other varieties, and put on an absolutely spectacular show of pink blossoms.
9. Most of the nursery stock is now grafted to dwarf roots, making easy work of pruning and harvesting.
10. By planting a rarer variety of peach, you are helping to preserve biodiversity and maintain diverse seed stocks for generations to come.

Peaches are easy for home gardeners to grow. The following mail-order nurseries offer bare-root ?Saturn' peach trees. Plan to order them in the winter for early spring planting.

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• Bay Laurel Nursery
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• Miller Nurseries
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• One Green World
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• Raintree Nursery
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• Stark Bro's Nurseries & Orchards Co.
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To learn more, read Saturn Peaches in the Oct./Nov. 2006 issue of Mother Earth News.