It’s a nice tasting peach. Like many of these older varieties, the fruit doesn’t color well. In fact, some years there will be a little green around the stem, even though the fruit is soft ripe.
Apple,
Just about all peach flowers are pink. There are a very few outliers which are white and a few lavender.
Showy blossoms are distinct from non-showy in that the showy have bigger petals and open up quite a bit so the petals lay more flat. Non-showy petals are much smaller and don’t lay as flat but point out forward from the base. I still have probably over 60 different peach varieties in my orchard (I’ve gotten rid of a bunch) and it’s generally very easy to spot non-showy vs. showy flowers when you walk down through there.
Sometimes there are some that are sort of “in between” showy and non-showy, but those are rare. As I recall one of the Peento peaches is like this. Could be classified as showy or non-showy.
I can’t easily find a pic of one of my non-showy blooms because I generally don’t photograph them, after all they don’t provide much of a “show”. Maybe someone here can provide a closeup of some of non-showy peach flowers?
Here’s a closeup of another showy peach flower. A professional photographer wanted to take some pics of some of the blooms last spring. I don’t know what variety is in this pic.
Thanks Drew for the kind words. I too believe Zaiger breeding has produced some of the best tasting fruit in the world. It would be a shame to not try some of the peaches and nectarines they have come up with if you could. If you like a well balanced fruit, those peaches above are my best 2 followed by O henry and Red Barron. My favorite nectarines would be Flavor Top and Fantasia. White nectarine would be Arctic Glo, Heavenly White, and Arctic Star. Most of those are all Zaiger fruits, they have definitely pushed the limits in fruit breeding! I realize these fruits need a lot of sunshine to be at there best so not everyone will be able to get great results with them. I would really like to thank you again for those premium quality fig cuttings, especially the Cravins Craving! Thanks to you I should have some very excellent figs in the coming years!
Yes, a very old tree at my cottage is like this. I have no idea what it is? I did graft some scion on my trees last year. Redskin for those who don’t know is a cross between Elberta and Red Haven.
Their are a few double flower peaches that are very showy like Red Baron (not my photo-I want one, but don’t have one…yet)
Showy is more daisy like, while non-showy are more pink buttercup cup like. It’s harder to see in the pictures but the Reliance picture above, each flower is about as wide as each of the petals on my Halehaven.
Redskin wasn’t released till 1944. Redhaven was released in 1940. And of course Redhaven wasn’t famous at the time of it’s release. That would have left only 4 years for Schrader and Haut to figure out Redhaven was a great peach (it would hardly have fruited by then) and a suitable cross for Elberta. Then all the testing involved for a release of Redskin. The timeline doesn’t work.
Elberta was a well established peach since 1880 and J.H Hale was introduced in 1912. I think that’s the germplasm used for Redskin.
Today, we harvested all of the fruit from our “Thai Giant” Indian jujube (Ziziphus mauritiana). I have never harvested so much fruit that I needed to use a large laundry basket.
Definitely something to consider for fruit at this time of the year besides citrus in the low desert! We pruned all the branches from last year’s growth to make room for 2018 new growth.
I always remember eating these during Chinese New Year! One of our favorite winter fruits in Taiwan. When properly ripen on the tree it is like a mix of apple, pear and very juicy and quite sweet!
Big thanks to my neighbor who allows our crazy food forest spill over to her backyard and let us come over to harvest and prune. She and her family really enjoyed the fruit too!
I was not sure at first how it will do here in the low desert, but it does amazing if you give the tree consistent moisture in the soil. I was reading that the one I am growing “Thai Giant” is hybrid between cultivars from Thailand and Myanmar! Maybe the Fresh Milk variety is one of the parents?
In Taiwan, where I am from, we have all kinds of fun names for them!
Now you have me curious having never tasted one before. I wonder if I could find some at an Asian market. Are they like a sweeter Asian pear or is the texture more melting like a Euro pear? Thanks for the education.
It tastes like a crunchy Asian pear, without the grit. Not melting like the Euro pear. When it is the ripe stage of yellowish green, it is very sweet, with a hint of both pear and apple, but with its own unique flavor. Very refreshing and crunchy. It is definitely in season right now, so you may be able to find them in Asian markets.
Refreshing and crunchy is my definition, too. The ones sold at markets were not allowed to be fully ripe. So, generally speaking, they are not very sweet. I would say mildly sweet is what I would describe the taste.
Once I have had a chance to eat fresh Chinese jujubes these past two years, I really like them. They are sweeter and denser than the Indian ones. You should try Honey Jar and or Sugar Cane. Shanxi li is not as good.
