It’s a good one. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. But 11 yrs ago I declared HB the world’s best fruit. I guess that one ups botanical bryce.
I’ve got an excuse: I was on a sugar high…!!
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Certainly no substitute for an acid high.
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Those acid highs can be wicked or so I’ve heard. I’m about a drug naive as anyone on plant earth. I don’t even know what weed smells like. Guess I run with a clean crowd.
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Good lord, no wonder you need your sugar!
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Lost all my nectarines to a raccoon two nights ago. On top of that he tore up the tree as well.
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Got a gun?
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Yes.
It’s half my fault, I throw out table scraps in the garden all winter. We have some feral cats and they keep the rodent population down. The draw back is I have more skunks and raccoons.
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You got very lucky! A few days ago I bought a box of Honey Blaze nectarines, and tried one today. Cannot describe the flavor since it had none. Brix measured 9. How they are able to grow such bad fruit in California is beyond my comprehension.
I had a couple of Honey Kist nectarines on a recent graft and picked them at least a week too early due to possum pressure (the tree is too small to bother with netting). These nectarines had brix 20. On my netted trees where fruits ripen properly I have never seen a nectarine with brix below 25, usually it’s in the 27 to 30 range.
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Thats folks like me Stan 
! All fruit trees grow like weed for me and produce fruit but no matter how much I thin / cut down on water my brix is not great!
I tried some Honey Blaze, Honey May, Arctic*** nectarines in my farmers market and the brix was 16+ on all of them. There was also an interesting Honey*** apricot that has 20+ brix! It was very sweet but dry…
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You may have recent my recent post singing the praises of June Princess Nectarine. I am curious if you grow that variety, and if so what you think about it? I ask because you mentioned that non-cracking is important to you. Almost all of my nectarine varieties have some cracking issues if a lot of rain comes after a long drought, but June Princess is the big exception to that. I’ve never had a single one of them crack under any circumstances, and that is really saying something for nectarines in my experience. The taste is very good but not in my very top- still, its a good tasting nect that doesn’t crack and has lots of other neat attributes I talk about in my orchard photo post, so I wanted to mention it to you if you don’t already have it. If you do, I’m curious if you have similar experience.
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Too much water and probably too much crop on the tree. They are growing for weight, nothing else.
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Yep, I was very lucky… Last year, I didn’t have such luck, and I think in both cases the source was the same; Kingsburg Orchard in California…
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I think a lot of the problem is commercial growers pick the whole tree and sell it all. For a vase peach tree, I’ve found the inside fruit is pretty poor quality. There is about a bushel per tree which isn’t very sweet. I sell those as canners for half price.
I’ve found the early varieties are more problematic with the more center fruit. Of course irrigating and heavy loads bring the brix down. I’ve seen numbers from CA that they can raise 400 to 500 fruit per tree. I’d never in a million years try to raise that many peaches per tree, unless I was paid on volume, which is exactly the case for most commercial peach growers.
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The problem is that the growers are poorly organized so the lowest common denominator becomes the norm. When customers buy bland fruit they tend to ultimately buy much less of it. The production of mediocre fruit hurts the industry (and allows you to make some money from your much less efficient production methods, but of good tasting fruit).
It is cheaper to distribute fruit picked too green as it doesn’t bruise as easily and requires less protection. Shelf life is much longer, as well. So water is only part of the problem.
I believe that the American consumer purchases much less fruit than Europeans just because our product truly, truly sucks.
There are just enough exceptions to keep the true fruit lovers buying, but many rely on small growers at farmer’s markets to get something enjoyable to eat- or do what we do and grow their own. However, in my area, high-end markets often charge a premium for “tree ripe” fruit. Not as ripe as what I eat from my own orchard, but at least containing reasonable sugar.
Make American fruit great again. Grow your own.
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@rayrose and @fruitnut
I am going to look for Red Gold next spring. I have a Mericrest and a Harko. Both very young . . . this is only their 2nd spring in the ground. No fruit yet, of course. But, I prefer nectarines to peaches . . . and I LOVE that acid kick. Thanks for the ‘review’. 
@ltilton
Actually . . . I bought some nectarines at Walmart this week that were pretty darn good. If you have a Walmart nearby - check them out.
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I have squirrels, raccoons and opossums I live trap and relocate when possible. I have 12 trees in a raised bed. Early in the year I wrap the inside perimeter with flexible plastic fencing held upright with stakes. I think because it is floppy the animals don’t try to climb it, and they don’t seem to try going underneath. I doubt it would keep out a desperately hungry 'coon, but it has worked so far. I put bird netting over the top as the fruit ripens.
As for kitchen waste, except for onion peels and citrus rinds it all goes in my worm bins.
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Growing Fantasia Nectarines and Elberta Peaches here in New Mexico. Both are excellent and really productive. The nectaries are so sweet they literally start oozing pure sugar before they’re even fully ripe. Then it’s me racing against the Japanese Beatles who devour them (need to invest in netting). The peaches are nearly as sweet, but for some reason not as attractive to the pests. Maybe it’s the slightly tougher skin.
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It’s the fuzz- a natural defense.
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@Squiggy
I often think that there must be a bird that could be introduced that simply adores eating those damn beetles! (But . . . then they would acquire a taste for nectarines, most likely!) LOL
I watched the beetles eat leaves on my plum trees (seem to be their fave) and infest my roses . . . but they seem to leave the pomegranates alone. ? I have considered planting nearby roses - just as bait - to lure the beetles away from the fruit trees! This year - I bought 6 of those Japanese Beetle traps. At the end of the first day . . . they each had about a ‘cup o beetles’ each! And I only spotted a dozen or so, still chomping away at the fruit trees. The traps are stinky, unless emptied often . . . but they do help enormously.
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Well, after eating 23 brix Honey Blaze yesterday, I believe you! This was from my potted (30 gal fabric pot), second leaf tree, which had about a dozen fruits… I measured the brix of two of them yesterday, one was 21 and the other was 23. Me and my family also had 20 brix Flavor Supreme (which was obviously great), but every single one of us said the Honey Blaze easily wins, even my son who loves plums and is not a fan of nectarines… On the other hand, my control experiment (in ground, second leaf Honey Blaze) produced mediocre 12 brix fruits. I think I have found a way to get top quality fruits in our wet north east! @fruitnut Big thank you to you, without your ample advertisements of the Honey series and advice on this forum, I would not have eaten this truly sensational peice of fruit…
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