A nectarine is a peach. In fact peach trees have always and continue to throw up the occasional non-fuzzy fruit which is what we call a nectarine. The first record of the nectarine dates back to 1616 but it is thought that they were deliberately bred and grown much earlier in central Asia. They are now treated as a separate cultivar group but must be grown in the same condition as peaches. Peach and nectarine trees need full sun and lots of nutrients to flourish. Their high nitrogen requirement coupled with a thirst in warm weather makes them quite labour intensive to grow. AS anyone who has bought the bullets that pass as peaches and nectarines in UK supermarkets night guess, these fruit should ideally ripen on the tree and are best eaten on the day of picking still warm from the sun. A peach or nectarine eaten from an orchard on holiday is not romantically misremembered as better than anything bought in a shop. It probably was.
