Well I bought the refractometer, but then, I bought a smart phone almost a year ago and still haven’t taken the time to figure out the GPS. There always seems to be something more important to do. But I’m seriously thinking about it.
The refractometer takes about one tenth of one percent as much brain power as a smart phone. I suppose it might need calibration first. After that just slobber on some juice, read, rinse, and repeat.
Both this year and last year animals ate most of my Gold Dust. The tree is on Citation and not that big, which compounds the problem. Last year I was able to save 1/2 of an under-ripe fruit on July 13th, when I was still picking PF1s. Even at that point, it still had good flavor and 12 brix (better on both counts than the fully ripe PF1).
This year, the tree had a bigger crop (a bit over a dozen maybe), but I noticed on 7/14 (just one day after last year) that there were only 2 left. I picked both and ate them within a few days, after they softened. The smaller one surprised me, as it was 17 brix and very tasty. The larger one was similar to the one from last year- under-ripe and 12-13 brix.
It feels like this could be a great late July peach if I can protect a few more. I’ll probably graft some more next spring to get a bit more of it.
Harrow Diamond peach getting fat fast!
Lots of leaf curl on this guy though, to my dismay. I’ve been picking off the curled leaves and disposing of them offsite.
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Update on my Harrow Diamond peach on Krymsk.1 roots:
2 of the 3 peaches this small tree set - in its first leaf post-transplant - held on and colored up nicely. The tops were just barely yielding to thumb pressure today… so I picked them! For July 5th-- these peaches look BEAUTIFUL. They are small (the tree is still small), fuzzy, and literally smell like peach shnapps. They are completely blemish free despite the swampy spring we had. I will wait another day or two for perfect ripeness before eating…
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Once the tree is plugged in they will get bigger. But first peaches of the season are always great, and HD actually tastes like a peach even if it has the early season cling and split pits. Mine aren’t ready yet but I’m enjoying my very light crop of Rich May, which is a smaller peach that ripens over a week before HD. It also has genuine peach flavor, although sugar is down this year as a result of the spring conditions you mention.
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I just went to Kissell Hill Farm near Lititz, PA. Mr. Elam Smucker there has his early stonefruit coming in. He let me eat a Sentry peach for free… and he let me pick ripe Harrow Diamonds right off the tree!
Sentry in my hand dripping with juice. Harrow Diamonds in the bag!
Here is the entire haul:
Middle bag: Harrow Diamond yellow peach.
Emperor Francis white cherries.
Clockwise: Sentry yellow peach.
Sugar May white peach.
Unknown white nectarine (smells amazing)!
I am traveling to Connecticut again today for various reasons, and will be visiting @BobVance again. I’ll be sharing these goods with Bob so he can help me eat them!
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Flavor May is distinct from Rich May aka Flavorich?
Where did you source your Flavor May trees? Sounds like a great peach. I love early peaches!
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Should have written Rich May, that is the peach I meant. I hate the name because I can’t seem to get it inbedded into my increasingly feeble brain.
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Good news for me. I just planted RM this past spring.
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I apologize for being a contrarian, especially since there is much enthusiasm for Harrow Diamond, but wanted to share my limited experince with it. When I first planted HD a few years ago I was really impressed with it as an early peach. Size was huge and sugar was decent for an early peach.
But my one tree was on K1. I was impressed enough that I put in another 15 to 20 trees. But last year I started picking HD off of trees with peach roots. I was a little concerned not only because the size was smaller, but mainly because they weren’t near as sweet as the K1 tree.(The K1 tree also ripens almost a week earlier.)
I thought maybe last year was a result of the HD on peach roots being young trees. But this year again the HD on K1 were good and the ones on peach roots lacked sugar.
I had been looking for a good non patented early peach I could propagate myself and thought HD was the answer. It produces well in marginal years and the foliage is completely free of bac spot. Also seems to have a fairly spreading growth habit. But the flavor just doesn’t seem to cut it here. I ended up ordering 20 Earlystar from Adams the other day as replacements for HD. They ripen several days earlier than HD but the flavor is more dependable here.
Also picked Spring Snow. For the third year in a row the flavor was excellent. I gave some to a friend I owed a favor. He came by this morning and also said it was considerably better than other early peaches he’d been eating.
That’s just my experience so far here. But we have been getting really early springs. Plus for the HD it’s only two years for HD on peach. But I don’t want to waste any more time with it when I have proven performers in my area for that window. I could go with HD on K1 but my one HD on K1 seems to lack winter hardiness.
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I have a similar problem, Gold Dust is the first peach to ripen for me and the squirrels all show up for the party. This year I decided to add two tube traps to their path to the tree and I have been trapping 2-3 squirrels per day for over a week. So, unless the traps start letting up I should be able to get a harvest for a change. I lost maybe 1/3 of the peaches already due to squirrels not going into the traps or full traps.
My big surprise early peach this year is Sha Zi Zao Sheng, it is in fact now my earliest peach as it seems a touch before Gold Dust. The squirrels pulled them all off but they are so big they could not hold them, the fruits just rolled down the hill. I picked them up and ripened them inside. They were delectable! A fantastic white-fleshed peach as good as any I have eaten. Its amazing how good it tastes and how large it is (truly huge) for such an early peach. Probably not good commercially though due to being a cling. It is also rot-prone but my Indar sprays kept it in good shape. Split pits as well.
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Pictures please!
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I haven’t tasted Early Star or Spring Snow (which I assume is a white). I have Early Star in my nursery but somehow never have gotten around to trialing it. Guess I better. I don’t like Harrow Diamonds growth habit, although if I’m careful I can keep it compact, but if I’m not it will quickly become a sprawling donut with no productivity in the center and little hope of generating interior wood.
What I like about HD is that it has some acid and here has adequate sugar to be a good peach.
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It looks like yet again I have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory … sigh. I think the hard rain washed off most of the mast and then a squirrel mob seems to have shown up today and stripped the tree. GRRRRRRRRRRR. 
The level of diligence I need on this tree is just nuts. It also is a high pressure squirrel year, I think I have over 30 bagged up to this point.
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I’d clarify that Earlystar, although sweeter here than Harrow Diamond, isn’t what I’d classify as a sweet peach. Earlystar is sweet enough for me to feel comfortable selling but nothing that deserves high praise. It’s just the best yellow peach I’ve found that works here for that harvest window.
Spring Snow is a white peach that deserves high praise, imo, as grown here. I think it was @Matt_in_Maryland who tried them them from a Farmer’s market and thought they were only a mediocre peach. That has puzzled me for a while, but I may have a possible reason for the disappointing peaches Matt received.
I tried a few early drops of Spring Snow this year and they weren’t very good at all. From that I conclude if Spring Snow is picked early (highly likely with many commercial growers) it won’t develop near the flavor it’s capable of. I put in quite a few Spring Snow this Spring and plan to put more in next Spring. I may end up toning down my enthusiasm for this peach. But so far, it’s been a home run in the flavor category for three years, especially for such an early peach. One other nice thing I like about it, is that you can sell probably 95% of the fruit on the tree because even the one’s on the inside hold their flavor pretty well. For other early varieties, only about 75% of them hold good flavor and the inside picks aren’t good for much of anything except canning.
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I can’t figure out how to post photos here from my iPad. So occasionally I have to go to my computer to post.
Here are our next early peaches:
HW 272 - leaf curl resistant and very productive. A pretty good sized and decent tasting peach.
Babcock - absolutely classic white fleshed peach. Not so large as you can see from the sharpie in the photo, but tree is only in second leaf. Delicious!
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“I can’t seem to get it inbedded into my increasingly feeble brain.”
Just eat more fruit. The heck with what you call it.
Mike
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July Prince is not what you would call an early peach here, more mid
season, but mine are ripening now. With the early bloom we had, with
no pollinators, combined with the late freeze that wiped out 90%
of our state’s peach crop, July Prince still came through for me. Not as
big of a crop as usual, but still sufficient, large and delicious. All of my
other varieties only gave me one or two peaches per tree. I can’t praise this
peach enough. I only wish I had more of them.
I’ll be happy to send scion wood to regular posters only. PM me later
this year.
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I’m green with jealousy at how many different varieties of early peaches you have access to south of the border. Here, virtually the only peaches we can get are Frost peach, which seems to be a very average peach flavour-wise from the ones I’ve been able to harvest and eat. We have bloody raccoons around here so I’m setting up my electric fence this weekend.
Anthony
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