'Angel Red' pomegranate

‘Angel Red’ pomegranate nearing full bloom right now:

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Mine too. Clint. Hoping for fruit this year.

Same here. I got one pom from my 2nd year Angel Red last year. Have about 6 flowers on it right now. I love my pomegranates. They are growing in a section of my yard that I couldn’t keep anything alive in and are flourishing with very little intervention.

Are your trees still pretty young? It takes a few years here for poms to start being productive.

Pretty young. They’ve been in ground for about 2 years.

Clint, mine are young, too. Think this will be year 3 in the ground for me.

‘Angel Red’ is worth waiting for in my opinion. You wont be disappointed. :point_up:

Thanks, Clint, I’m very anxious to try this cultivar. It supposedly has very soft seeds so you can just eat the seeds and pulp together. And, it’s supposed to be very sweet and rich-flavored. Crossing my fingers for a few fruits on one of my two trees this year. Love pomegranates.

I remember a funny story about them as a kid - we had this (poor., beleaguered and misunderstood) older woman that lived alone on a corner lot in our neighborhood. Her house faced the corner and in the corner she has a huge pomegranate tree. Around Halloween, we rascally kids would try to sneak onto front yard, and swipe her pomegranates. We were convinced she was a witch because she’d sometimes catch us sneaking onto her front yard, and come after us with a broom, screaming at us. My earliest memories of eating pomegranates, acquired in a very naughty manner. :smiling_imp:

Ha! Forbidden fruit is supposed to be the sweetest, but I think fruit that you planned for and pampered trumps all.

Angel Red was selected from Wolfskill trials of soft seeded fruits, selection was based on color of shell at ripeness. I was a participant. The grower then went through an intense propagation effort and produced both the plants and commercial crop.

Many homeowners do not understand that the flavors of pomegranates vary widely under different climate or micro-climate condtions. The popular cultivar “Wonderful” tastes great when ripened on a plant in the CA central valley but has a lesser taste (in fact never fully ripens) here in coastal influenced San Diego county. In my experience the same is true of Parfianka and Angel Red. My favorites for this area are “Eversweet” and DPUN 0139.

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That’s certainly not limited to pomegranates. All gardening is local.

‘Wonderful’ is excellent here and can be found for cheap. ‘Angel Red’ can be found cheaply as well if you can find the L.E. Cooke offering. The Monrovia selection can be pricey. ‘Angel Red’ is a little earlier than ‘Wonderful’ but just as good with smaller fruit and softer seeds. For me, it would be redundant to grow any other pom varieties.

In addition to the flavor of a single cultivar varying to locality, there is also the phenomena of different cultivars having different tastes. Here is a short list of flavors I sampled at Wolfskill about a decade ago. The seed hardness scale runs from 1=soft to 5=hard. Seed hardness is not an issue for those who have a juicer.

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Did a little Summer pruning this morning and noticed some fruit starting to set:

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Not the best picture, but all pouched up and ready for picking in a month or so:

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Hi Clint, what kind of animals you’re protecting your poms against? I will be having my first harvest of poms this year, and I didn’t know they need protection from wildlife.

Squirrels are the worst, but there are also rats, birds and leaf-footed bugs to keep off my poms. The metal screen pouches have worked well so far.

So, I walk out among the poms this morning and decide to pull an ‘Angel Red’ down and crack it open. No pic to share, this was just a trial balloon. Dull skin, check. Blocky shape, check. On first cut I noticed that the skin was still a bit too thick, so not at peak ripeness. The taste was very good though, but the arils were not fully colored every where. Still a nice addition to salads, cocktails and for snacking in late August. I can start to bring them in now as needed.

Small harvest with brainshot:

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3 more than I got this year, Clint. Oh well, maybe next year for me. I’m getting blossoms, but no fruit. I know it can take several years. I’m going to try a little more fertilizer this next spring, too. I know they don’t need or want much in the way of fertilizer, but my soil in this particular area is really just about 100% DG, so almost no nutrients to speak of. Just granite :slight_smile:

Bummer! Consider planting another variety next to it (if you haven’t already). Poms are supposed to be self-fruitful, but sometimes I wonder. Having the Wonderful and Angel Red next to each other seems to help both set better. My poms took about three years after planting to fruit reliably. The last few years I’ve used Gro-Power flower and bloom mixed with compost and mulched in the Spring. I also Winter prune poms hard and heavy with thinning and topping cuts.

EDIT: There are still a bunch more poms on the tree. I’ll harvest them as needed in the coming days and weeks. Seems like one of those years where the arils don’t color up as much as Wonderful.