Early corn cobs are small but sweet

Quebec’s early corn on the cob and the first peaches from Ontario have arrived, and both are sweet and good. Arrival of both foods is a signal that we are having a season when everything is ripening a week to two weeks ahead of normal.

Cobs of corn are small, but kernels are full of flavour. Ontario peaches are clingstones but semi-freestones and freestones will be along as early as Aug. 1, according to Adrian Huisman of the Ontario Tender Fruit Producers Marketing Board.

He forecasts a peach crop that will be almost one-third smaller than last year because April frost damaged orchards in the western part of the Niagara peninsula. But recent heat has ripened peaches early and given them plenty of sugar.

The fruit, selling in threelitre baskets, should drop in price over the next week from $6-$7 a basket to the $5-$6 range. Peaches will be plentiful until the end of August, plums until mid-August.

Damage to Quebec crops by the July 4 hail and rain storm around St. Remi is not as great as was forecast. Onions were the most affected as it’s too late to replant. Local green peppers, celery and cantaloupe are expected in Montreal by the weekend.

Among imports, sweet cherries from Washington state have dropped in price. The smaller the cherry, the cheaper, so check size of fruit before you buy. Small watermelons, called mini watermelons, are a good buy; they ripened before they grew to full size because of excessive heat down south.