It’s Peach Season!

At the age of 18, I moved to Boulder to go to a Buddhist university and study creative writing and Buddhist texts. Upon arrival at that school, the student leading my orientation made us close our eyes and pretend to be trees and asked, “Who is going to save the kitty?”

What kitty? I wondered.

I opened my eyes and he was on all fours, meowing. I was in awe, hoping that this was just a fluke and not an accurate impression of the college I had chosen.

I realized quickly that this introduction was an accurate one and that not much learning was happening there. Classes were spent with students so rip-roaring high, they repeated themselves over and over. Students were often combative with teachers, challenging authority in ways that felt more like theater than actual grappling with their teachings. More than one student told me proudly that they had a trust fund. I had taken out $25,000 in loans to be there. I couldn’t imagine going six figures into debt for this. In between classes, sitting on the green, I sometimes just cried into my (very good) veggie burger from the little cafe on campus.

At 18, I was dating a 25 year old man who was sleeping on a air mattress. I was newly off narcotics and drugs were so prevalent that I spent most of my time off campus holed up in a coffee shop (Trident and The Laughing Goat). My roommate had no sense of other people and played Star Trek in our shared room at three in the morning, as if I could just… sleep through it. There were orgies in the dorms where people left their doors open for all to see. And, speaking of open doors, once a student took his door off the hinges while drunk and slammed his door into an RA’s door, like he was in some medieval movie where you’re trying to get into a castle. That student wasn’t given any disciplinary action, and while I was a free spirit, I realized I was not that much of a free spirit (reader, I was miserable), so I left that school after one semester.

My very short time in Colorado during my early college career was transformative. I learned to love the mountains and hiked my first 14er. I fell in love with swimming in Boulder Creek and went there every chance I got. I also fell in love with Nederland and seriously considered moving there in 2023 when I left New York, but the cost of rent was so high, I just couldn’t stomach it. I go back often, and sometimes I think I might end up in Colorado again. In so many ways, it honed me, grew me, pushed me.

I grew up in a canned-fruit household, so I’m not sure if, before being in Colorado, I ever ate a fresh peach (sad, I know). But I arrived during the tail end of peach season and ravenously devoured them. I learned about the different counties of peaches, like Delta, Montrose, and Montezuma. It was maybe the first time in my life that I would eat things head-to-head, grabbing peaches from the farmers market and trying them side-by-side with friends. I learned what anyone with years of eating in Colorado would tell you.

The peaches in Palisade are so good because of the microclimate on the Western Slope, with tons of sun during the day creating a lot of sugar and steep drops in nighttime temperatures balancing the acids. That big swing in temperatures makes some of the sweetest and juiciest peaches around.

When I got home to Minnesota, I remember trying to find peaches that tasted like those Palisades I fell in love with. Out-of-season peaches are a tragedy, and I waited all year to go to the co-op to get peaches, but… they just were never the same. Yes, during peach season in Minnesota there are tons of places offering Colorado peaches, but very few of them are selling Palisades. Co-ops and other grocery stores often come in and out of Palisades, making it hard to assess if you’re getting a real Palisade peach or a lesser Colorado variety. One place that always has Palisades, though, is Stillwater Colorado Peaches.

For over 30 years, this family has been shipping in peaches from a friend’s family farm and selling them to people like you and me from their driveway in Stillwater. I’m always a little frenzied the morning of pick-up, with that buzzy feeling you might get before an exciting trip or after you ace a test. Picking mine up, I sink my teeth into the peach before I’m even off their property, because nothing tastes like mid-summer to me like these specific peaches.

Available for preorder (cash or check only) at $70 for a 20-pound box ($3.50/lb), these peaches are the best you can get in Minnesota. You could order an entire box for yourself and freeze what you don’t use immediately, or you could grab some friends and split it four ways. There are two options for pick up this year: July 25th or August 15th. If you’re looking for where to get the best peaches in the state, it’s not up for debate. It’s here.