Very nice! When the discussion turns to cold hardy varieties Iāve not heard this one mentioned. Is it a reliable cropper in our iffy winters/springs? Just looks VERY tasty!!!
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I am not sure how reliable they are. This is the second crop from them and I had no issues so far. I also have Frost peach, which flowers later than Mary Jane, but they ripen at the same time. Frost also tasted good but Mary Jane was better, sweet with a dense flesh.
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Thanks Bob for the report on White River. I actually have another tree of it I put in a few years ago (I really put another one in on a whim, after I lost an earlier one before ever tasting the fruit.)
I probably donāt need another average white peach, so Iāll probably just get rid of the one Iāve got. Plus it blooms so early. Some nice looking TangOs, but the bottom one looks pretty green. I try not to sell them quite that green, but maybe it looks better on the underside.
Yours actually look considerably better than mine ever did. Of course I got a lot of them with the hole cracked in the middle (about all my TangOs II did that this year, along with a fair amount of TangOs I).
My Sweet Bagel were completed covered with bac. spot, along with the leaves every year. Most of those which didnāt crack in the middle, cracked or dropped because of bac. spot. Those which survived were so ugly, there was never any hope of selling them. They did taste very good though.
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One nice thing about it is the interesting flesh color. I brought a few (WR and Contenders) in to work and people still seemed to like them well enough, even though they arenāt super sweet. Same with my wifeā¦I mean that she likes them well enough, not that she isnāt super-sweet (even though thatās true 
).
I picked one from a high-up, better thinned branch and it was a bit better, but not stellar. Brix of 9-11.
I think that @alan is right- this year is horrid for peaches. I tried a few others which are ripening around now:
Contender (most of the below pic)- the highly colored one to the left of the label was 9-11 brix, just like the better White Rivers. They have a bit more tang to them, so I like that, but it still falls way short of the ones I had in 2015. 9 days earlier, they were 13 brix, with a firm, crisp texture.
Elberta- This is the first time Iāve grown this. Not bad, but at 9-10 brix, it needs more sugar.
Carolina Gold- This time they are only 8-9 brix, while in 2015 they were 12-13 and I was already asking why it wasnāt sweet enough. In 2013-14, I had a lot in the mid to upper teens, with one or two cracking 20. I think the problem was over-cropping in 2015, something that I did again this year. Add in bad weather and the results arenāt much fun.
Early Crawford- Also the first time Iāve grown it. Iām not sure if it is fully ripe, but I think it was close, if not there. It tasted pretty good, except it had only 9 brix.
All but Carolina Gold and White River self-thinned a bit, so they were bearing reasonable crop loads.
All this leaves me all the more impressed with what I got from my Loring tree. Maybe the warmer conditions by the driveway help, but the Elberta should be benefiting from the same micro-climate.
It also leaves me more motivated than ever to thin- a lack of thinning doesnāt just result in small size, but sub-par taste and a lot of it fruit to deal with. It also means that I really shouldnāt hold this season against the White River. But, if I thin well next year and it isnāt much better, then it is gone.
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Yeah, my big old Jonboy broke off at the roots in a storm at the beginning of summer- lots of rot and the tree had long lost real vigor- I have a Madison 5 years older that still sends out new wood like a kid. Nevertheless, this early Loring is reliable here and always just a bit sweeter than most of my main season peaches. I guess I should start growing Loring as well.
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I think this is a low-sugar year for later peaches in the east, the rain has been really bad. My Oldmixons coming in now are the least sweet I have ever had on that variety.
I am surprised Early Crawford is not more sweet, they are one of the sweetest in my orchard and even this year they were pretty sweet. Carolina Gold I am not surprised about, it is always low-brix. I topworked mine with Nectar this spring.
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Very wise idea IMO. I always kick myself when I end up with more fruit than I need and itās all subpar. Your trees have looked overloaded at times. My rule is thin what seems like enough and then take off another half.
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I had 2-3 of these on one graft and 1 on another, but something ate all of them. I guess I didnāt miss much this year.
That was just the first one I sampled and there are a bunch more- I got the wood a few years ago from Olpea and had all 5 grafts take, so it covers a decent portion of my Encore tree. Maybe the later ones will be better- the 10 day forecast doesnāt have any more rainā¦
That surprises me- for the first few years, when it was sparsely bearing, CG was among the higher brix peaches. Next year Iāll make a special effort to thin it and see if I can get the brix back.
Two peaches I did like this year were Carmen and Shui Mi Tao. I donāt think that the Carmen was too high brix (maybe 12), but it had good flavor. I picked the SMT a bit early and it had an acid bite, along with 16 brix. Both are young though and I didnāt have many of either.
Iāll be doing well if I can even thin what seems like enough, rather than only taking off the doubles and ones with insect bites.
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Shui Mi Tao takes several years to get going. It also seems to be a bug magnet, I lost a lot of them this year. And its highly prone to premature drop. Iām not sure I will keep it given all the problems.
Carmen for me varied by the year, some years good some years not so.
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James,
You are ahead of my re. PF24C. Mine is not quite ripe yet. I picked one yesterday. It did not come off easily. They may need a week more to ripen. It seems all my fruit this year ripen later than everyone else in the same proximity.
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They start to drop off the tree and insects/birds start to attach them, so it should be time to harvest. I still have some on the tree bagged as they are free of those attacks.
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Wow! It happened again today! I found another one, so that makes 4 large peaches coming! Perhaps I needed to prune more, although I took out a whole limb and thought I pruned the rest well enough. So how do you know when enough is enough?
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Damn I bet that was good. I made pear almond butter once and it was the best preserve I ever made.
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I got some pretty nice peaches called Fayette havenāt been able to find much about it.
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Bob, I wanted to offer full disclaimer, I ended up getting rid of my two Early Crawford. I got them both from Arboreum Co. but was continually disappointed in the size. Mine were barely bigger than golf ball. They tasted good. Normally I donāt care much about size, but these were just too small.
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Mine are on the small side, but not unacceptably so. They are the same or bigger than my Carolina Golds, though the CG could probably be a bit bigger with thinning. The EC do have a slightly lumpy shape with a pronounced seam (looks bigger in person than in the pic).
I sampled another and this time it was 14 brix, with good flavor. In past years I would regard 14 as decent-to-pretty-good, but this year it is impressive.
I picked most of the rest of my White Rivers. The ones higher in the tree may have a bit more sugar, as evidenced by the numerous wasp holes. It seems that they can identify the sweetest onesā¦
Iāve decided to try freezing them- halving them, then putting the plate in the chest freezer (9-10F). Once they have frozen, Iāve been consolidating them in gallon freezer bags.
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Indian Blood Peach!
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