AIKEN --- Mother Nature has not been kind to area peach growers the past couple of years.

An Easter freeze last year wiped out the peach crop, devastating local and state growers.

The harvest is better this year, despite a rocky start, farmers say.

Some peaches were ruined by the cold, they say, and a May hailstorm damaged more.

"It certainly got our attention," said Sonny Yonce, of Yonce & Sons Peaches in Johnston, S.C. "It's caused us problems. But we are working through it."

Chalmers Carr, the president of Titan Farms in Ridge Spring, S.C., said he has lost a significant percentage of his early crop but hopes to bounce back as the summer progresses.

A cold snap in March cost him at least 25 percent of his peaches when temperatures dipped into the 20s, and a hailstorm on Mother's Day took another 25 percent.

"Nothing as severe as last year by any means," Mr. Carr said.

He has workers packing up the fruit and anticipates shipping out up to 950,000 crates of peaches this year to stores in the East and South. The freeze last year destroyed more than 90 percent of his crop.

Mr. Carr said the first two weeks of the peach season can always be touch and go -- especially when there has been damage.

Mr. Yonce said his workers are almost a week behind in shipping out fruit, but he thinks "things will probably pick up somewhat next week, and then we'll be continuous. We've been somewhat off and on for the last two to three weeks."

Peaches are already available at roadside stands, he said, and should be in stores by next week.

But customers should expect to pay higher prices. Mr. Yonce estimates that fuel costs have nearly doubled the price of peaches from a couple of years ago. Nearly all peaches are shipped via trucks, he said, so high diesel prices affect the cost.

Food prices overall have gone up, he said, and fuel costs are a major reason for that.

"People are seeing prices they've never seen before," he said.