Peach picking three weeks early this year | News

FORT MILL, SC (WBTV)- Move over strawberries, peaches are here early. Ron Edwards at Springs Farm in Fort Mill says his peaches shouldn't be ripe for the picking until next Monday.

"Man we've been picking for three weeks, and we're on our third variety already," said Edwards.

He says the warm winter and good amount of rain fall has kicked the peaches into over drive.  This is the first time in the 10 years he's been running the farm that the peaches have been picked so early.

"This is crazy early," said Edwards.

The farm started picking peaches back in the last week of April and he says it's fooled customers.

"Customers want to know where the peaches came from and you have to tell them no they came off our farm," said Edwards.

He's also thinning the peach crop sooner to make sure the ones left behind will grow larger.

"You may think, hey all your peaches are on the ground but those trees are still full,"  said Edwards.

Aside from a hail storm last year damaging some of the peaches the past three years Edwards has had more peaches than he knows what to do with, but it's not the quantity he's looking at.

"You know we like to produce a good quality fruit so we keep our prices with our quality but when we have extra we'll whole sale it out," said Edwards.

South Carolina is the second leading producer of peaches in the US behind California, Georgia is third.

Copyright 2012 WBTV. All rights reserved.