If it works out to be 8.50 for 1/2 bushel (25 pounds) it only 34 cents per pound! That is the lowest price I have ever seen. Their farm looks great and I wonder how they can make money at that price?
1 Like
That’s not 25 lbs unless those peaches ave 1.5 lbs each. At most it’s half that.
Yes, my estimate would be about 10 lb. Local orchards in my area sell peaches for $2/lb ($1.5/lb PYO).
Matt
I’m real interested in prices since I also sell peaches. I looked at the basket again and I’m pretty sure that its a 1 peck basket (1/4 bushel - about 12.5 pounds). Still the lowest price I have ever seen on peaches.
Rick,
If you look at the link-- their website says they sell peaches at approx 72 cents per pound.
1 Like
I saw their example, but I was not sure that was the actual price per pound. In that case the basket in the picture that sells for $8.50 is a peck. A bushel of peaches weighs around 50 pounds and a peck is 1/4 bushel Better stock up at 72 cents per pound! Prices in my area are similar to the ones mentioned above by Stan, more than 2X your prices.
My vote is that it’s a 1/2 peck basket. It looks like a 1/2 peck basket to me (although it could be a peck).
It’s sort of like trying to guess how many jelly beans are in the jar, but it looks to me those baskets hold around 13 peaches. Five or six on top and a few more than that underneath. Because the baskets are narrower at the bottom, they fill up fast. Those peaches look close to 3", which would make them about 1/2 pound a piece. That would be about 6 lbs. or 1/2 peck.
At $8.50/ basket that would make them about $1.40/lb., a good price for a small quantity of peaches. Most growers here (myself included) sell larger quantities cheaper.
The wholesale price for peaches in MO is about a buck a pound. Last season MO peaches were selling for about $27 a lug or a little over a $1/lb wholesale.
In major peach growing areas, like California and the East Coast the wholesale price of peaches is lower and can fluctuate considerably.
Below is a pic of a 1/2 peck basket, peck basket, and 1/2 bushel basket. I don’t have any peaches right now, so you’ll just have to imagine them. 
Olpea,
Always helpful, always knowledgeable. I greatly appreciate your contribution.
1 Like
Olpea!!! My fav!!! So glad you are here! Welcome back!
2 Likes
For me, Kit Donnell lags Baby Crawford by about a week but overlaps a bit and is earlier than (Faye) Elberta. I find that, unless tasting them side-by-side, I would be hard pressed to tell Baby Crawford from Kit Donnell. When tasting them that way, I prefer Baby Crawford for flavor. Kit Donnell can produce giant (larger than O’Henry or Elberta), beautiful peaches in California, though, and they keep well. In that climate, it’s a no-brainer to have.
1 Like
yeah…that’s a half peck. So that’s something like $1.30 per lb…pretty good deal. Very good deal if they’re even reasonably good as compared to supermarket prices vs. typical supermarket quality.
I would suggest that Mrs. G’s advice is priceless if you live on the coast. Conditions are completely different next to water with cooler summer temps and a longer growing season without too much in the way of extremes beyond the constant humidity.
IMO, the key benefits to Elberta is its’ general lack of color discourages bird pecking, its’ relative resistance to brown rot and good size. Here, in SE NY Z6 it is not a top 10 peach for flavor.
Encore is a very good, reliable peach that comes a few days later than Elberta but it isn’t so good that I’m not trying O’henry, due to high praise it receives. A few days before, Madison is somewhat tastier (once again, IMO) and may offer better bud hardiness than Elberta. If you can find it, Harcrest is even better, although nothing surpasses Madison for producing a healthy long lived tree.
I completely agree with Matt about the high quality of Glenglo- especially for an early peach. Rich May is also very good and extremely early- they were ready in late June here last year. Goldust is a really good tasting early, but Glenglo is bred for east coast conditions which is probably a huge plus.
I’ve only just started harvesting Winblo, and it is high flavored but there are plenty of other great peaches in its season. It is good enough that I am not cutting it down- I’ll need a few more years to decide who gets to fill its slot. Not a great bragging peach as it has small size, but who cares. Goldust and Rich May are also small but flavor trumps all.
PF28-007 is certainly a very good candidate for a late peach based on my brief experience with it. First crops of trees were quite tasty last year and it ripens with Elberta.
Unfortunately, this is a terrible year for acquiring peach trees so you may have to postpone you quest for really good varieties, either by waiting a year or by planting what you can get and grafting later (its’ not so hard if you graft in mid to late spring when they are in vigorous growth and the weather is warm).
2 Likes
I like Rich May also. Its a great peach although its a clingstone. Some folks don’t like clingstone peaches, but my view is that a fresh clingstone peach is a lot better than no fresh peach! I expect just about all the peaches in the ACN catalog do great in the Mid Atlantic area. Some of these same variety should be available next year from a Tennessee nursery for about 1/2 price.
I have both Winblo and Contender which are very similar. Contender ripens a week or two later. It requires very high chill hours and often produces fruit in my area where other variety are frozen out. Carolina Gold ripens several weeks after Contender. Its another high chill hour peach which blooms late and is reliable in frost prone area.
I would love to have some of those Glenglo peaches in Matt’s picture to eat right now!
2 Likes
Excellent info Alan. I appreciate you taking time to offer your suggestions. It’s very helpful. It looks like there are some options available to me for all windows.
@Olpea Thanks for your input on the sizing information, but what are your thoughts on the original discussion concerning the peaches we’ve discussed? Red Haven and Indian Free will definitely be 2 of the varieties I plan to grow. There are tons of peaches that ripen between those two and I’m looking to have successive ripening with likely 4 total varieties. We’ve talked Contender, Kit Donnel, GlenGlo, Elberta, Early Crawford, WinBlo, Golddust, Caolina Gold, and several others. I think I’d be fine with RedHaven being my earliest peach especially if the earlier varieties mean they are clingstone.
Speed,
With the caveats that I’m in the lower Midwest, have a good fungicide control program, and have a lot of difficulty w/ bac. spot, here are my thoughts.
In your original list, I grow Redhaven, Saturn, and Contender. Indian Free doesn’t work here very well. It is the most unique tasting dessert peach I’ve grown, but just not practical for me because of bac. spot. My larger orchard is a very windy site which abrades the leaves fostering more bac. spot. My backyard orchard is much less windy and less problematic.
I really like Redhaven and Saturn. I’ve budded and grown a few more Redhaven every year for the past 4 seasons. Last season was my first experience w/ Saturn and I really liked it. One of the better white peaches. I budded several more Saturn last fall. Scott is right to be wary of brown rot. He’s by far not a lone voice in this. However, the fruit were very clean for me last summer, despite tons of rain. The difference is cover sprays, as Scott alluded. Saturn ripens before Redhaven.
Contender is a fine peach. It ripens about +21 here. You won’t need it’s hardiness in WV unless it occasionally gets -10F below zero, which is when you can start to lose some fruit buds. North Carolina developed several hardy peaches, but I don’t think they need them for hardiness. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I assume they developed these hardy peaches not primarily for winter lows, but because they are also high chill which can give them a little later bloom in areas prone to damaging frosts.
After one season, I really like Glenglo, but again that’s just one season. Pretty much any Midwest type peach before Redhaven will be a little clingstone (Harken is -5 and it’s freestone). Generally speaking, the earlier the peach, the more clingy it is. Just the nature of the game.
Of some of the other peaches mentioned, I like Baby Crawford. It’s a smaller peach for me, but not as small as Early Crawford. Those peaches had a nice flavor, even with lots of rain.
Like Alan, I just harvested Winblo last year (and only a few peaches at that). I agree there are a lot of good peaches in that window. Winblo is a little more prone to bac. spot than other peaches. I probably won’t put in any more Winblo. Ernies Choice ripens at the same time and last year was every bit as good as Winblo, without the bac. spot.
Alan also mentioned Encore, which has been a really dependable good late season peach. Last summer it suffered from the rain more than other peaches in that window (suffered in taste, not appearance) so I am looking for something in that window. This was the first time this happened in several years, so I don’t want to be too hard on it, but I did throw a lot of Encores away. 28-007 was better. I have O’henry which is a great tasting peach I think Scott originally turned me on to, but it gets bac. spot pretty bad in the large orchard. I received some Augustprince wood from a very nice forum member as a trial peach for that window. Augustprince is supposed to have good bac. spot resistance, but I’ve read some of the Prince peaches can be a little winter tender.
Alan mentioned Madison. I was thinking about this peach the other day. Last year it picked about a week before O’henry and Encore. Although only one season of harvest, I really like Madison. This surprised me because sometimes old cold hardy peaches can be a notch down in flavor. Madison tolerated the rain well (in terms of flavor) set and sized a lot of fruit and was bac. spot resistant. I think this is a very good late season peach for a home grower. The only potential downside I saw from a commercial perspective is that it doesn’t color well (again another advantage for the home grower). I will probably add more Madison in the future (color isn’t as big a deal to me since I retail my own peaches).
Victoria was my latest yellow peach. Nice flavor for such a late season peach.
6 Likes
Its interesting both you and Alan had the same opinion on Winblo. It has been variable for me - if it has been raining a lot at harvest they have little flavor, but in a few years they were really fantastic. My Ernies Choice for years was far inferior to Winblo, but it got better and better as the tree matured and its now a very consistent peach I would also put a notch above Winblo. I may have been under-thinning it in the early years. Ernie Choice is also one of the easiest trees to grow for me, it naturally forms a great shape.
Any opinions on Veteran peach? It is touted as good peach for the northern fringes, but is it any good in warmer regions where there are a lot more options?
Veteran was a dog for me, bland. I was not 100% certain I had the right variety but it was from a reputable nursery.
1 Like
Scott,
That may be the case for my Winblo’s too. As you know Desmond Layne rated this as his favorite peach. Mine weren’t bad at all, just no better than other good peaches in that window. Maybe mine will improve w/ less rain and more mature trees.
I also think the region in which a cultivar is grown can make a big difference. My Winblos lost a lot of leaves due to bac. spot, which I’m sure cut back on the potential flavor.
I really like both Contender and Carolina Gold. I’ve grown CG for 3 years and while it is on the small side, it gets an interesting flavor with plenty of kick. This was Contender’s first year for me and I was positively impressed with the large, good tasting (though not as interesting as Carolina Gold) fruit.
I grew Winblo in a pot and overcropped, then killed it, so I grafted it back this past spring, for a better evaluation. The few peaches I got from my young GoldDust have been top-notch and very early, a nice combo.
For flavor, Encore hasn’t impressed me in the 2 years I’ve fruited it. But, that could be because it gets a bit less sun than the others (along a SW facing wall, with a bit of morning shade).
1 Like