Early peaches, cont

I finally cut up my Harrow Diamond peaches for my family after 3 days off the tree. My specimens are small (the size of large apricots)… but GOOD!

Look at these peaches! Completely organic. Beginners luck:


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Matt they look great. You can’t beat the taste can you?

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Peachy aroma and flavor. Juicy. Yummy!

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Yesterday we picked Raritan Rose and Betty. Delicious! Both varieties seem to bruise from looking at them and show finger marks from picking.

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I had my first PF11 nectarine today. The squirrels cleared out nearly all the early peaches but one of these rolled down the hill out of their sight. It was not ripe but I let it sit inside to ripen. Wow, what an excellent nectarine! Its everything the descriptions say, super tasty classic nectarine flavor and very disease-resistant. The fruits all looked perfect (before they got stolen that is). It was not quite as intense as Mericrest but the fruits size up much better, and its earlier than most other nectarines. Overall a big winner!

For yet another year in a row I got no Nectar or John Rivers… every year I get a super-massive squirrel wave just now and those trees get cleared. I have four traps in the area but they were not quite close enough I guess.

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I ate my first-ever Gold Dust peach this evening (before midnight on July 11, 2017). I had picked it two days earlier (on July 9, 2017). I planted this tree on Lovell from Sanhedrin (DWN) three years ago based on Scott’s (and @alan’s) positive comments.

This specimen was semi-freestone. Just a hint of gumminess and mealiness in the texture, but not too bad. It had a twangy sourness and was really SWEET! I’m a total sugar-head so I really enjoyed the sweetness of this peach. The sample was small (tree is still young). It ripened right about when I estimated it should.

This peach was high on the tree. I had pruned around it so it could have sun and dominance. It got a very red cheek on the sunny side. The flesh under the red spot was particularly sweet. There are a few other peaches left on the undersides of this tree that appear yet unripe. I’ve heard Scott discuss this phenomenon before, particularly about this variety. He was right.

I love early peaches, so I am glad to have enjoyed my first real impression of this peach.

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The difference in peach quality is mostly about brix. A refractometer reading is worth a thousand pictures. Goldust is a great early peach because it gets high sugar for an early, but this is also highly influenced by rainfall, so even readings have to be comparative. So far, I’ve eaten Flavor May and Desiree and the year has been so wet that split pits consistently cling to individual sides of the peaches- makes me glad I’m not a commercial grower.

Of these two varieties, only a few peaches I’ve harvested have enough sugar to be a true fine peach. However, they are aromatic and better than what I’m likely to find in a store. Flavor May had nice split pits without fractures but Desiree has small pieces of pit you have to be careful not to bite into. Although Desiree is a bit later, Flavor May was marginally more flavorful, but then, it had a tiny crop. Its’ flowers were likely damaged during our single nite of winter temps in mid-Feb when the southern peach crop was largely destroyed. Trees here were dormant but more vulnerable than normal because of insanely warm temps in the two months previous. I think it has led to a crop where peaches are hanging on the underside of trees- although fruit set was very good there.

Oops, I just did a reading on a Desiree peach and it is 14% sugar, which is actually pretty good- but the peach still tastes somewhat bland to me. I would have guessed it to be more like 11%. Hmmm… just when I think I’ve established some clarity on fruit growing another wrench always finds its way into my gears.

I still recommend that photos alone are inadequate and members who want to share their fruit experiences should purchase a refractometer so we can clearly see where the sugar is. Fruitnut made me aware of this. He would likely throw away any peach with less than 18% sugar.

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As I just said in another post 15 can be good, even very good, in a peach. Low acid nectarines need that 18. Honey Royale can be very good at 18.

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So is anybody growing GaLa peaches? I see @Matt_in_Maryland mentioned them and he was kind enough to bring me a few from a local orchard during a recent visit, but I don’t see anyone else mention them. I’ve compared them to Glenglo from 2 sources and I have to say I and everyone else in my family of 4 liked the GaLa better. Don’t get me wrong, the Glenglo were great, but the GaLa had a richer peach flavor and more of an acid bite and probably the best early season peach I’ve ever had. That fit my preferences perfectly, so I’m thinking of grafting it into my Gold Dust or Contender.

But maybe I just didn’t get the best Glenglo peaches or the GaLa Matt brought were just above average for the variety. Anyone else tried them?

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GaLa continues to impress me. CVN and ACN supply trees. Not sure about scion sources…

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More on GaLa:

https://www.acnursery.com/fruit-trees/peach-trees/118/gala-peach

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There has been a vigorous debate over which is the better peach. GaLa or Glenglo.

In my experience, some years Glenglo seems to perform better. Some years the opposite. By this I mean flavor and overall eating experience.

Peach Gods @Olpea and @alan emphatically prefer Glenglo. They are expert growers with infinitely more experience than me. Olpea especially likes the seeming disease resistance of Glenglo-- clean looking leaves and fruit.

Nevertheless, this latest batch of GaLa were VERY good. Flavor doesn’t lie.

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There are two errors in that sentence but the one not obvious is the suggestion that I prefer Glenglo over Gala. The only Gala I’ve ever tasted was an apple, and I will attest to preferring a good Glenglo peach to any Gala apple I’ve ever tasted.

My intention is only good humor and fellowship here, not quite sure how it came off.

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What about PF8 & PF8 Early? How do they compare to Gala and Glenglo?

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I’m currently growing GaLa. It ripens about a week after Glenglo here. GaLa is a popular commercial peach. One disadvantage of GaLa is that it has trouble producing much fruit in marginal weather years. GaLa does keep very clean foliage and fruit. So far I prefer Clayton for that harvest window, but I’ve only harvested Clayton and GaLa for a couple years.

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Our early peach is a Sugar May from Adams County Nursery. The tree is three years old and this is the first year harvest. We had a late frost this year and the tree was already in bloom. So, I had to cover and keep it warm with a light bulb. The result was a very heavy set and should have thinned but rookie mistake. The peaches are very red skinned with a white center and are free stone. Problem number 2 I had with this tree was pressure from the neighborhood squirrels and impatience for letting the fruit fully tree ripen. The fruit is very fragrant, almost perfumy. If allowed to counter ripen, it does become sweet and even sweeter than the Redhavens we are now harvesting.

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Here’s a mystery. I just ate a Glenglo that was the richest, best peach I’ve had this season and it was only at 11-12 brix while a blander Desiree I measured a week ago was at 14-15.

The important thing is that things are getting better. My Silver Gems are now flavoring up as well.

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I have hesitated to focus on Brix because I’m not convinced that it tells the whole story about which peach or which fruit taste the best.

I just bought a $25 device to check brix and I’m going to start comparing my taste buds against the instrument.

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On any given tree, I will say that the higher brix fruit tends to be the most flavorful.

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I’ve been thinking of adding a silver gem, how would you describe it’s flavor, and how does it compare with other nectarines that you grow

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