I like reading your posts. You are able to do a lot of things that most of us average people can’t quite do. It’s interesting what you are working on. Thanks for sharing it with us.
John S
PDX OR
I have Aspergers too. Autism and Bipolar disorder. What many people don’t realize out Autism is they are super detail oriented. I am like you. I could easily tell you a million facts about edible gardening, a million facts about my work at USPS but I could not tell you much about other subjects like flower gardening. Either way autism is a spectrum. People used to and still do expect you are going to be like a Ring Man. Thing is we know it is a spectrum now. There are people with autism with extreme smarts but no social skills, people who are not very bright but have high social skills and people in between. Like I said if I get into something I learn more than your average person but if I am not interested I will just skirt by.
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LOL.
For individuals who don’t live it, the condition is hard to fathom.
I daydream solutions to enigmas others can’t seem to grasp, yet blunder at slip knots on my sweat pants.
RainMan is both more gifted & learning disabled at the same time.
Kinda my condition on steroids!
LOL
Nice to meet you.
I have heard reports that up to 75% of college professors have Asperger’s syndrome. You don’t get to that high level without paying attention to detail and being very focused.
JohN S
PDX OR
I would have agreed, until I had yellow dragonfruit. The red ones I’ve had are pretty tasteless.
True from grocery store. But when home grown and allowed to ripen until soft figs can be pretty good. Not as good as sweet cherrie, Euro plums or Jujubes (all of which can be 25+ brix), but well worth eating.
That doesn’t sound right 
I’ve never had a Shiro that I thought was “good”. At best they were OK, slightly sweet bags of water…
Now Euro plums like President, Valor, Empress, etc can be great. Regrettably, I’ve only found really good ones in the grocery store once. But the farmer’s market sometimes has good ones (not consistently though).
Agree on McIntosh. The best RD I’ve had was “passable”. But when I first started going to PYO, I would always get some Mac because they looked so dark red I thought they must be ripe/good…nope. It look me a while to figure out that the related Macouns and even Courtlands would be much better, even if they weren’t as colored up.
agreed
Pears are one thing which can be decent from grocery store and farmer’s market, as pears often need some storage to be good. It’s a bit of a hit or miss thing for me. Asian pears don’t need the storage, but they do keep pretty well, so they are also good.
While I’ve had some “eh” Honeycrisps, they are often pretty good, when getting organic ones from a decent store. And I remember one time I had some from a PYO which were stellar. I even posted on Gardenweb (this was a while ago) to check to see if they were really Honeycrisps…Consensus was that they were, but from a tree with good exposure and allowed to fully ripen.
Wow- while I’ve had bad Lychee (very limited shelf-life), I’d say they are good 80%+ of the time, at least when purchased from Chinatown. Sweet & sour with 20+ brix. It’s the sweet cherry of the tropics. Same for the related Longan (though a bit dryer than Lychee and without some of the tartness).
Did you have a crisp, juicy variety like Honey Jar, Sugar Cane, or Black Sea? It makes a huge difference. Now that I’ve eaten so many jujubes, I’ve come to appreciate the “texture lacking” ones and can even (moderately) enjoy some of fruit from rootstocks. But when starting out, the crisp ones (like an apple) with 25+ brix are tough to not like.
It isn’t just the ripeness. A lot of varieties are just bad (low brix). Korean Giant is head and shoulders above the others and there are several which can be pretty good (20th Century, Jilin, Mishirazu, and probably several others that escape my memory).
But, I’ve never had a good Housui, even from PYO and from Alan’s tree. Of course my wife and some Chinese friends loved the bland, crisp, 11 brix pears that I was willing to part with
Black raspberries tast pretty good to me, though maybe a bit dry for some (not an issue for me). Things like Black Currants and Elderberries are on my only for jam list.
My never had a good one list:
Indian jujube- Chinese ones are great, but the Indian ones are crisp, low brix and flavorless
Goji berries- tastes like a tiny tomato
Tomato- technically a fruit, though it pretends to be a vegetable pretty well…
Honeyberry- probably a bit unfair for me to have it on my list, as a lot of people say they need to hang a long time. But, I don’t net them, so they won’t hang more than a day before birds get them, so any I’ve had are probably newly blue. They’ve ranged from tart/boring to tart/barely palatable.
Serviceberry- I’ve grown several kinds and all were bland
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@TrilobaTracker,
You need to try California Rare Fruit Growers red fleshed Dragon fruit, better than the yellow, far better than white.
I have never tasted a good fig,
as they have all been Awesome!!!
Good is for all the inferior fruits out there.
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European plums are a lot sweeter than Japanese. Most of the reason I have Japanese plums like shiro is for pollination of things like the Nadia cherry plum I have coming or the pluots I plan to get.
There are two types of “yellow” dragonfruit, some that are either hybrids or the same species as the main white-fleshed variety (S. undatus), which are bland as far as I have seen, and others that are S. megalanthus which are really good.
I’ve only had one of the red-fleshed types (S. costaricensis), and while it was better than undatus I didn’t think it was anywhere near as tasty as the megalanthus I’ve had.
Here is what the yellow undatus looks like (inferior quality):
Here is what megalanthus looks like (delicious):
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@swincher
megalanthus is okay.
The red fleshed by the former president of CRFG is better than megalanthus.
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Does that cultivar have a name? I’m growing megalanthus in my greenhouse and would love to add a costaricensis cultivar if it’s really that good. I’m sure different megalanthus vary in quality as well, but all of the ones I’ve had were intensely sweet and very flavorful. The one costaricensis that I tried was a lot less sweet but did have a nice flavor.
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I have only had about a dozen.
Epic Gardening has over 200 different dragon fruit.
He is the one to ask about names of cultivars.
Comment on the bottom video of the post above.
But he gets like a 137 Million views so 
response might not be instant, but will be knowledgeable!
The fruit that I’m referring to is Edger’s red fleshed one.
Epic Gardening may know of ones even better than that.
He is a video of Edgar’s yard.
Got my first red-fleshed dragonfruit from the grocery store today (California-grown). It was not bad, much tastier than any undatus I’ve had, but still nowhere near as sweet or flavorful as the megalanthus I’ve had from MiamiFruit. Here’s the one I just had:
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Many different red flesh dragon fruit suggest contacting the guy at Secret Dragon Fruit care.
He is the expert not me.
Probably plums for me, that’s why I don’t buy them at the supermarket anymore.
Okra and bitter melons are next. I eat them occasionally but they are not my go to vegetables.
Agree on the blackberries. They aren’t bad, they are just so plain to me compared to a raspberry.
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I like both blackberry and raspberry. You almost have to grow your own of both where I am because they are so expensive. It’s ironic because a raspberry or blackberry cane will spread quickly and you can get a actual patch with a actual harvest in a few years. Issue is they cannot be easily machine harvested. I suppose if you had me pick a raspberry or a blackberry I would choose the blackberry. The blackberries I have had have a lot more flavor than a raspberry.
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I know this is an old thread which I haven’t even re-read all of now, but I appreciate this super helpful post by swincher. I agree that the megalanthus have been consistently much sweeter than the others. The seeds are larger though and sometimes can be a little unpleasantly bitter.
Not a dealbreaker, but it does affect the experience. Like I don’t reject popcorn because of the hulls, but the ones with less noticeable hulls are much more enjoyable to eat all else being equal.
I like the red dragon fruit. They are supposed to be crazy good for you. Super expensive here though. I imagine they’re hard to grow here in PNWet.
John S
PDX OR
i like all dragon fruit. the nutty taste of the seeds is nice. i do want to try one of these less common cultivars one of these days that aparently have a strong flavor. ive had yellow and red fleshed but not like the purple ones