Oh dear . . . gritty? I don’t like that either. I have some Blake’s Pride scions that are developing nicely. If they are gritty . . . they will need to go!
And Figs. What do you do with the figs that just never fully developed? Take them all off now? There is no way they are going to have enough heat to develop now, is there? I have Olympia and Chicago Hardy. And apparently a new variety of stink bug that I have never seen here before. Have you ever seen spotted stink bugs?
I have only eaten Blake’s Pride for 3 years. Comparing to other finer Euro pears, it is a bit gritty. Its eating quality may improve as the tree matures, I guess.
As for figs, I removed all that would not ripen in time. When I have time, I will prune all branches down to about a foot and cover the base with mulch. My area is a lot colder than yours.
The spotted stink bugs look like a nymph stage of the bigger ones? Stink bugs have many nymph stages.
Sometimes we get bonuses when fruit trees have nice fall foliage.
Korean Giant
Kassandra persimmon had red foliage but I forgot to take a pic.
My older apple trees suffered early defoliation, possible some combination of fungal diseases. I sprayed fungicide about 3 times befoee bagging apples. The fruit are perfect. The leaves are a different story.
Pink Lady on a 12 years old Honey Crisp had complete defoliation by Oct. pics taken yesterday.
Newer trees like Suntan has not gotten the diseases badly yet.
Suncrisp has fared the best.
Very interesting, Tippy! From seeing the photo and from your description, I know EXACTLY what you are experiencing with that melon. If its like I’ve had, many of the veins in the melon almost feel like strings in your mouth. And the melon isn’t quite as sweet as normal ones of the same variety. So I know exactly the condition you are describing. I have had that happen with more than one variety, so I think your problem is one of conditions and not a trait of GA Rattlesnake. So then the question becomes "what conditions create this fibrous, stringy, less than fully sweet melon. For me, it seems to almost always, if not always, be with late melons. Also, you wondered if it might be from over ripening but I thought with mine it might have been from under ripening. But I don’t much think its either. I don’t think there is a clear cause even though I know exactly what you are describing. I think maybe its like any fruit…one in a while you just have one that isn’t as good as the others.
Sorry I can’t be of more help other than to say it happens to me, too, sometimes, and I am sure it isn’t GR specific.
Kevin,
Your description was exactly what I experienced. The only reason why I thought it was overripe was because I let it on the vine for so long.
However, I think your guess of it being underripe makes a better sense.
We lacked heat by the end of Sept. This (or any melon in my yard) did not get any more heat for it to sweeten up and ripen properly. It properly could not progress with its ripening process and became under developed with stringy texture.
Also, if it was overripe, the inside would have split and become mushy instead of firm like mine.
Thanks, Kevin. Your explanation was a good one. My Georgia Rattlesnake set a few fruit and all were late. I am not discouraged, though. I will plant this variety against next year.
With tons of rain from the time watermelons were flowering, fruit setting was sparse. Not a good watermelon year for me, unfortunately.
I think we both learned from this. The more I think about it, the more sure I am that I’ve had this happen in the fall when watermelons stop ripening but remain in a suspended state for a fairly long time, which is basically what you have described too. Its as if the melon stops getting larger and sweeter, but the “veins” and fibrous materials sort of toughen up. Sorry if you didn’t get to try any GR. I did remember that they needed a little longer growing time but I never thought of it as being extremely long (I don’t remember the actual days but I’m sure you know what the seed sellers say about it). So I think you can probably pull one off even where you are next year if you get an early start and have good weather.
Yup, we intended to plant them out early every year but ended rather late (Memorial Day) every year. Tardy should be my middle name 
thanks. I’m nuking them today. We are ‘crawling’ with the ‘stinkin things’! 
Tomorrow morning temp will be down to 25 F for 3-4 hours. With temp that low and that long, I decided to pick my apples but 2 of Pink Lady. I left them out to see what will happen.
I have 3 or 4 Arkansas Black that seem fine after last night of 22 degrees.
In my childhood we went to a road side stand and bought a cantaloupe which was very good. My mother split the melon in wedges and each of her children disappeared with their chunk. My chickens would benefit from the rind so I went to the chicken yard where I found no chickens home as they were off eating grasshoppers. Had recently moved them from the old chicken house to the new chicken house which is wise as rats are attracted in a few short years. The old chicken yard being bare naturally seemed like a waste so I planted those melon seeds as I ate spreading the seeds out with my foot as fresh melon seeds stick together. I was eating the melon with a spoon and imagine it looked like a bowl. Pretty much forgot about the melons but happened on them again and they were growing in great numbers with many melons on the vine. The melons were wonderful and a larger second crop was forming. Think 50 -100 + melons in the first crop. The second crop ripened and like you describe were not edible. You are speaking of water melon ofcouse and I’m talking cantaloupe but as both of you describe the weather was not hot enough and there was to much water. Those melons were all as you described. Coincidence maybe but more likely a tip to start melons earlier inside or grow shorter season types. Dessert king watermelon does great here but most do not.
I picked all but 2 of my apples last week. Prior to last week, we have hard frost about 5-6 times.
I bagged all my apples. Generally speaking, I had two issues with bagging apples:
After a few frost this year, I noticed another issue, ice damaged.
I saw ice formed in some bags of various apples. I was pretty sure ice was in the bags icing my apples all night. I saw damage on those apples. Their skin shriveled. Texture was rubbery from frost/ice damaged.
Variety like Suncrisp was easily damaged by ice in the bags. Meanwhile, Pink Lady appeared unfazed by ice.
I plan to remove bags before frost shows up next year to avoid this issue.
You are a great story teller! I was right there with you as you ran off with your slice of cantaloupe and planted it in the old chicken yard, and especially when you discovered the fruits of your labor! Ah… we never know how good we have it as kids!
I left a Gold Rush, a Honey Crisp, and two Pink Lady on the trees these past two weeks. They went through temp at and below 25 F (22 F was the lowest) to see what would happened.
The Gold Rush sustained the most cold injury. Skin was wrinkled. The apple was not quite ripe.
Pink Lady’s exterior looked almost normal. It was not quite ripe, either.
Honey Crisp had water core.
All had rubbery skin. They tasted better without skin. Still, they were not ripe and did not taste that good. Honey Crisp tasted fermented.
In the future, I probably will not leave my apples on my trees when forecast call for 25F or lower.
Got this apple out of the fridge. Surprised that it was a red fleshed variety (lightly pink-fleshed, to be accurate). It was in the fridge for almost 2 months. It was surprisingly crisp and had a good balance of sweet and tart.
@aap , @tonyOmahaz5 , @PharmerDrewee , @SMC_zone6 , @BobVance , et al,
Here was my last fruit of the year, Rojo Brillante persimmon. I picked it today. It was on a 3 yr old potted tree. It went through many 32 F and lower nights in my garage.
It weighs 7.4 oz (210 grams). It is soft to a touch. It is an astringent persimmon. I will let it get totally soft before eating.
Keep us updated on if it fully loses its astringency.
On Sunday I picked most of the rest of the fruit:
25 lbs of iffy (mostly 10-12 brix) Goldrush (much better in past years when more thinned)
8-10 lbs of Sundance (better than GR this year, but mediocre at 12-13 brix)
I left 3 of these Picudo to more fully soften:
Some of my Astringent persimmons have lost their astringency from combinations of CO2 treatment and cold. I know I’ve had at least one good IL Mok Jae Cha Ryang (spelling? the biggest at about 250g), Miss Kim, and Chienting, and Nikita’s Gift (40+ brix).
But I’ve had some where the astringency wasn’t removed even though it appeared soft and ripe. I haven’t kept as good of track of which ones came from which tree, in particular Picudo and Korea, which look similar and both produced a lot of fruit.
I also ate a couple of winter pears that I had in storage for over 2 months. I had heard that wax on the stems helps preserve them, but in this case it didn’t really work (though I used parafilm instead of wax, so maybe that was why). But they were very good- 21 brix, strong flavor and smooth texture. Just not pretty.
Here’s the same 2 pears when first picked in October:
