You are in a little bit warmer zone than my 5b. Have you had success with pluots? I am really interested in Flavor King and Flavor Grenade. I suppose it couldn’t hurt to at least try a couple grafts to see how they do. Of course, if they are less bud hardy than Satsuma, this is probably a pipe dream.
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I have Satsuma fruit now 2 years in a row. Although this year i had a branch break on me…and lost some fruit already to bird pecking. To me it sets more fruit then the super hardy Alderman hybrid plum. I actually ate one this morning (it was ripe…but small). I only have a few grafts of it and maybe a dozen fruit this year.
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Those look delicious, congrats on growing some nice looking plums!
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Great fruit day, mostly because we went to a kid’s birthday party and had mango-fruit cake.
Lets see, pint of blueberries, Sun Sugar cherry tomatoes, bowl of Staccato cherries, raspberries, dragon fruit, mango, strawberries, honeydew, cantaloupe, grapes, and kiwi. Delish & healthy too.
Anthony
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ate some honey berries, serviceberries for the 1st time, and some earliglow strawberries. find the serviceberries bland compared to blueberries. but eaten together with the honey berries balances them out. 
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Ate a Winter Banana apple that had skin blemishes. Almost ripe, It had a decent tart/sweet balance.
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Well I want to try one of my Hamese asian pears. Ive been wondering when and how to tell if they are ripe and I may have just received a sign. One of them has turned color from green to a distinct yellow/golden hue. Its hard to see in the photo but the one on the right has changed colors.
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So after googling Hamese pear to see if I can find pictures of ripening I think I could have a mislabeled tree. Its a 4x1 from Raintree and according to pictures Hamese are not perfect circles like those in the picture. Hamese pictures match another pear growing on my tree shown here.
Other pears on this tree are supposed to be Misharasu, yoinashi, and Shinseiki. The original pic definitely look more like Shinseiki to me.
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It’s easy to see. Not sure that means it’s ripe. But it’s a good sign to try one.
Those do match my Shinseiki. I don’t have Hamese so couldn’t remark on that.
I’d pick the yellow Shinseiki.
Anthony
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It does like like 20th century, too. For mine, when they turn mellow yellow, I pick them. My could be 3-4 more weeks.
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I don’t have many peaches, but my first ripe ones have been Saturn. These have really sized up well with all this rain. Still good. Ate an excellent Satsuma…small though. Lavina are almost there. Hesse are getting smacked so hard by birds this year…an annoying trait of Hesse is that its dark red forever so leaves a ton of time on the branch for birds to peck peck peck.
Lavina
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20th century tend to be bigger than most other Asian pears although this is mainly true in mature trees.
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How big is big? Mine has been small for the past 5-6 years even with aggressive thinning.
Have you had or seen a Korean Giant? That’s what I call a large pear. 20 th is a small not even a medium size pear, in my view.
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I had to sample some Very Cherry plums that y’all had been talking about. They had them at WM for $3 a box. We have had a few of them, and to me they taste like a big crunchy grape., with a little bit of cherry flavor. My wife said they tasted like a plum, peach and a bit of cherry. Interesting fruit, but not something we’d probably get again.
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In the Asian markets around here, 20th century Asian pears are the large size ones wrapped in that white crisscross mesh and sold either individually or in fancy boxes as gifts for special occasions. They are larger than the other varieties normally grown or sold around here. The supermarkets rarely sell smaller sized 20th century, only the large premium expensive wrapped ones. Korean giant is what I’d consider x-lg, and one variety I’d like to grow if I can find a tree at one of the local nurseries. 20th Century is probably the largest of the varieties available at nurseries here. I think fruit size is also greatly determined by how many are allowed to ripen and age of the tree. Chojuro is a very typical Asian pear commonly grown in these parts and the fruit are much smaller, but most people (like my parents & in-laws) don’t really thin their fruit so they get lots, but smaller in size.
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The skin of those 20 th century looked almost russetted. My 20th century skin is quite thin. You can easily munch the fruit without peeling it. Korean Giant is a russet kind. Some prefer to peel it first.
Those trees must be thinned to under 10% left to get up to that size. This year I thin down to 20%. They are still small. With the sane thinning %, KG is a plot bigger. There is no comparison in taste. To me, KG is a lot sweeter.
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I think Shinseiki and 20th Century (Nijiseiki) resemble each other quite a lot but 20th century was not listed as part of the 4x1 tree. Hamese appears to be oblong, Yoinashi appears to be more of a brown russeted pear similar to Chojuro, and Mishirasu appears to be a brown teardrop or oval shaped pear. So I’m going to say the two pears that produced this year off that tree are Shinseiki and Hamese. I was really hoping to try Mishirasu. Oh well, I’ll enjoy what I have and wait until next year.
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when i was stationed in korea back in the 90’s there were those big asian pear orchards everywhere. we used to trade the farmer , mre’s for them. real sweet and juicy!
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