I would appreciate some peach suggestions for my orchard.I am in Ohio, zone 5b, SW Ohio, so the peach season is limited to either the worry of frost at the time of bloom ( usually the issue) , or the the season getting cooler before the peaches get the time to ripen.
Right now I have Contender and also Redhaven planted. I had both produce fruit for the first time last year. I am trying to find one that ripens probably later than the Contender. The Redhavan ripens here about late July then Contender starts mid to late August. I prefer a freestone yellow. I have not tried any white peaches. I would like some that are not just so sweet that you lose out on the true peach flavor.
Perhaps you have some suggestions?
Thank you for any suggestions you may have.
Reliance ripens early July prior to contender so it might get you a peach earlier than the others.
Good idea. Thank you for the suggestion.
You might look into Intrepid and Carolina Gold. They are both hardy freestone yellow peaches from NC State U that are all supposed to be late blooming. They ripen in the sequence Redhaven, Intrepid, Contender, and Carolina Gold spread out over about a month. There is a fourth called Challenger that ripens about the same time as Redhaven/Reliance. And a white peach called China Pearl that ripens in the same time as Carolina Gold.
Those varieties are on my list for their reported -20F winter hardiness and later blooming. Vaughn and Cumberland Valley Nurseris sell them and Stark Bros have Intrepid.
Veteran is a good variety also. I got a few dozen peaches from a 3 year old tree in northeast Ohio this summer. This link What fruits did you eat today? - #341 by MrClint has pictures of them. Just scroll down to the August 18, 2016 entries and it will be there (FYI → for older entries you can click on the month/year in the top right and it will give you the exact date it was posted). Schlabach’s (amish nursery) probably has Veteran but they don’t have a website . Their address is 2784 Murdock Rd.; Medina, NY 14103. Also, One Green World has them in stock on their website.
I also have a Madison, but haven’t got fruit yet (same age but smaller tree) as well as Contender, Reliance and Red Haven.
If you want a really late peach, I have an Indian Free that also produced a few for me this year. I picked mine mid-September. They weren’t quite ripe yet, but still ok. They would probably be ripe the first week of Oct which is pushing it, but based on the fact that it was somewhat tasty in mid-Sept, I’m holding out hope that we’ll have just enough warm weather for those. I think Raintree carries them. Drew picked his in Michigan on Oct 5. Indian Free Harvest
I think Reliance ripens near the Redhaven window. A lot of hardy peaches seem to ripen in the Contender window (about a month after Redhaven - Veteran, PF-24C). I have had preliminary success with Harrow Diamond in z5a Iowa. It ripens about 3 weeks before Redhaven (July 10th for me this past year). Autumnstar might be worth a try for a late peach (though I have no experience with it). It is supposed to be fairly hardy and ripens about 3 weeks after Contender in early-mid September. I’ve also good things about Clayton, another NC peach, but I’m not certain when it ripens.
The only other peach I might offer to this thread is perhaps Encore. It can be a mediocre peach some years, but decent other years. It is very productive in the face of cold winters or early spring frosts.
As kshaunfield points out, Reliance ripens near Redhaven (-5 days here).
The order of the peaches mentioned would be:
Reliance, Redhaven, Challenger, Intrepid, Contender/Veteran (ripen at same time), PF24c, Madison, Carolina Gold, Encore.
Autumnstar does OK for me in frosty springs, but nothing spectacular. PF35-007 ripens about the same time and has performed better with an early frost. Last season Clayton ripened about -5 for me.
Thank you VERY much for the information and also supplying the pages of the nursery to order from.
I’ve noticed the same thing about the ripening times of a lot of peaches. There isn’t a lot of time difference between some varieties. One week + or - isn’t a long of enough stretch of time to use or process/can/freeze properly two trees full of peaches. My luck- if I have two trees close to ripening together they are both full or fruit- have only one tree ripening around that time I get about 6 pieces of fruit! I will look at the Autumnstar information. Thank you.
I will look at PF35-007. How is the taste?
The late frost is what usually gets the fruit buds here. Last year one local orchard lost all their peach crop and it was estimated at $20K loss. They are about 30 minutes north of me. Strange thing is that area from about that fruit farm and north seem to get a lot more bad weather than I get. Just that little bit farther north than me. It has always been that way as long as I can remember.
PF35-007 is like most of the late yellow peaches I grow which taste about the same most years. O’henry is maybe a tad better than most, but most late peaches are a little less juicy than earlier peaches and a sometimes a little less sweet, but they tend to have a good strong peachy flavor.
I was looking at the O’Henry peach variety. I had an order form ready to send to TOA with O’Henry as my peach tree choice. That was one reason why I held off. Not knowing if there were some other varieties I should consider. I figured the later peaches would perhaps be less juicy but I though perhaps the peach flavor would be enhanced. Such as with most late apple varieties flavor seem more intense.
You might look at this post. I know Ohio is just outside of what people consider the mid-atlantic but it’s close enough.
Re. PF24 C and Autumn Star, I have both. PF24 C flower buds are a lot hardier than Autumn Star.
The winter of 2014 ( Jan- March), we had really bad winter in term of several extremely cold days. About 50% of PF 24 C buds survived and only 15-20% of Autumn Star buds survived.
Then last spring, the late freeze in April, killed all the buds of peaches, nectarines and Satsuma plum.
First peach, Sugar May, second, Desiree (or Harrow Diamond if you can find it), third, Glengo, 4th, Jonboy, 5th Earnie’s choice or Coralstar, 6th, PF28, or Messina if that’s not early enough (Harcrest is hard to find but great at this time- resists brown rot), 7th Laurol, 8th Victoria.
This is for S. NY and most are available when not sold-out from Adams County Nursery. Indian Free is a great late white and there are many wonderful nectarines such as Silver Gem that I prefer to peaches in their season. Also Gold Dust tastes great in Glenglo season but I haven’t figured out how to manage it yet- grows more wood than peaches for me.
I forgot about Adams County Nursery’s maturity chart. Here’s the link https://www.acnursery.com/doc/8/ACN-maturity-chart.pdf
O’Henry is good but in some areas it is susceptible to bacterial spot. The PF peaches, almost all of them are bac spot resistant.
You mentioned white peaches, Indian Free is a white peach with high sugar, but also with high acid. It holds up to any of the yellows in flavor. It also is late bloomer. I had full crop dispite the late April freeze.
Alan,
I’m glad you mentioned that. I grew Gold Dust for a few years and it wasn’t very productive. One day in a mood of disillusionment and frustration, I cut it down. Since then I’ve wondered if I should have given it more time.
Please let me know if yours ever starts to kick in and really produce.
Also you like big peaches, and GD is definitely not that- maybe the reason it tastes so good is because so many leaves serve so few small peaches. Wouldn’t be the first time I observed that in a variety.