Growing up, Becca Hatt remembers always having quart-sized glass jars full of canned peaches in her Canton-area home.



This year, Hatt, now of Bexley, plans to maintain the tradition this year with the box of peaches she bought on Friday from the Peach Truck. They have to sit out a day or two to fully ripen.



"I'm going to try to can peaches for the first time," Hatt said. "Whenever they're ripe, that's the day we're going to do it."



Hatt and her kids, Charlotte, 5, and Tommy, 2, stood in line at Columbus Commons Downtown to buy a half-bushel box of peaches fresh from Fort Valley, Georgia. A line about 30 people long formed and maintained its length for about 30 minutes, though people moved through the line in a matter of a minutes. The line began to die down by the end of the hour-long tour stop.



The stop was a part of the annual Peach Truck Tour, which runs from June 1 to Aug. 1 and makes stops in Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas and Florida, in addition to Ohio, which has been a stop on the tour since 2014.

The tour will make several stops in the Akron-Canton area Tuesday and Wednesday, including:

• 8 to 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Moyer's Nursery, 10992 Millersburg Road SW, Massillon.

• 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Gervasi Vineyard, 1700 55th Street NE, Canton, and Canton Road Garden Center, 1881 Canton Road, Springfield Township.

• 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Graf Growers, 1015 White Pond Drive, Akron, and Suncrest Gardens, 5157 Akron-Cleveland Road, Boston Township.

• 8 to 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Big Dee's Tack and Vet Supply, 9440 state Route 14, Streetsboro.

• Noon to 2 p.m., Maria Gardens, 10301 W. 130th Street, North Royalton.

The tour will stop again in Northeast Ohio July 23-24.

Stephen and Jessica Rose, who started the Peach Truck and subsequent Peach Truck Tour, began bringing peaches up to Nashville from Fort Valley in 2012 to give people a taste of an authentic, fresh Georgia peaches.



"You have to bend over a sink or trash can because they're so juicy," Stephen Rose said. "It's sweetness combined with perfect amount of acidity. There's nothing like it."



Kim Gayheart, 43, of Pickerington, had known of the Peach Truck for years, but this was the first time she was able to go because she was usually at work.



She split her box with her friend, Beth Quigley, 49, of Canal Winchester, and plans to make a peach cobbler.



"I hope they're very juicy," Gayheart said. "You can't get good peaches in the grocery store."



The Roses' peaches are only sold in bulk in 25-pound boxes, at $42 a box. After repeatedly fielding questions from customers asking what to do with 25 pounds of peaches, the Roses came out with "The Peach Truck Cookbook" this year, full of recipes to cook with peaches in creative ways.



"A peach is so versatile — don’t keep it solely in the dessert section," Jessica Rose said.



Cookbooks are $25 each and offer 100 recipes incorporating peaches. The trucks also sell 10-ounce bags of pecans for $10.



It's a "logistical nightmare" to get a sufficient amount of peaches to each tour stop, which can include as many as eight stops in a single day, Stephen Rose said. But seeing the joy of people indulging in their peaches inspires the pair to continue expanding the tour.



"What we are passionate about are peaches," Stephen Rose said. "We just want to go in as deep as we can with peaches before changing anything."



The Peach Truck Tour will return to the Columbus Commons on July 19, and the last stop in Columbus will be July 20. A full schedule of the tour can be found at thepeachtruck.com/tour.



Stephen Murray, team leader of the group operating at Columbus Commons, is in his sixth year working for the Peach Truck and his fifth year traveling on the tour. He said he joined the business to "spread peach joy."



"People really lose their minds over peaches," Murray said. "It's a treat to get to share that."