Yeah Olpea. Please keep us posted on how all of your new early peaches shake out. Hopefully you’ll get some more winners.
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Olpea, I really think your evaluation is too harsh- I’m assuming this is the first harvest and the trees received excessive rain- meaning both too much water AND inadequate light plus the trees lost most of their leaves to disease. Early peaches are always challenged to get high sugar- I would be surprised in this situation if the fruit actually tasted good.
Seems kind of like blaming a kid who was kept up all night because of thunder storms for scoring badly on a science test.
Evaluate the trees during a normal season before cutting them down is what I say. You aren’t suffering for more space, are you?
Yes and no. I have plenty of space to plant more trees, but I’m running out of terraces I built and sold the piece of heavy equipment I used to build the original terraces. To hire someone to build terraces figures to about $45 per tree (not counting the tree itself).
The thinning, spray and weed control the trees require aren’t a huge cost, but it adds up. My guess is that some years Rich May may well produce a decent peach. However, I already have one very early variety (PF1) which is inconsistent on quality, I don’t need another one. Probably places like CA which have sunny days every day would produce a more consistent peach. Here in the Midwest we don’t have consistent clear sunny skies till summer starts.
I think these very early peaches are like blackberries. I’ve tried several early thornless blackberries and none of the one’s I’ve tried taste as good as later ones. They just don’t have enough time to absorb enough sunlight to sweeten them up before they are ready to pick.
Just wanted to update about Rich May before this thread sinks into oblivion.
We finally got a few days of good weather. Sunshine and no rain. This variety had lost a lot of leaves from bac. spot, but have started to put more foliage back on.
Originally the trees produced fruit very sour. This wasn’t only my own opinion, but that of anyone who tried it (lots of people). Yesterday I was out at the orchard and a customer asked for some peaches to make a cobbler and jam. I thought Rich May perfect for that. Tart/sour fruit makes the best jam and pies because the added sugar balances the intense flavor of the tart fruit. These fruit are also very slow to brown, which is kind of nice for processing. I’ve cut these up and let them sit out all day and they only start to brown after about 6-8 hours. The red color (full of antioxidants) might make an attractive jelly if it doesn’t turn brown in the jars (Several years ago a customer gave me a small jar of red peach jelly from some of our peaches and the red color was beautiful.)
I had her try a Rich May and told her it wasn’t very sweet. She said it was delicious. While we were talking I gave her another one and she really liked that one too. I thought she was just saying that because she didn’t know what a sweet peach tasted like, and mistook Rich May for a sweet peach.
I took a bite out of one and indeed it was pretty dang good. I tried two more and those were good. My son ate three yesterday and my wife ate one and both thought the peaches were good (whereas before they agreed the peaches were tart).
Really the change has been dramatic. It’s really surprising because generally the first picking is the sweetest and these peaches we tried yesterday were the very last picking. In both the first picking and last picking the fruits were picked tree ripe, so fruit maturity at harvest does not come into play. I’ve never seen a peach turn around this quickly, from completely substandard for fresh eating, to a decent quality dessert peach.
I’m not yet endorsing this peach, but I’m not ready to pull it out either. It’s still not as good as many later season peaches, but the peaches I tried yesterday were good (especially for such an early peach). These peaches were much better than it’s early counterpart PF1. PF1 is fuzzy (whereas Rich May has almost no fuzz) and the Rich May peaches I had yesterday were much sweeter and more intense than PF1.
Rich May is supposed to be somewhat winter tender and doesn’t bloom heavy, which is going to be a problem in late frost years, so it may not be practical here in the end. However, for right now, I plan to keep this peach.
Yay!
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My Rich May’s flower buds survived -12 nicely and I should get the chance to sample the fruit in a few days. Given how awful have been all the peaches and nects I’ve tried so far from CA and now Georgia. you may just have a market for an early decent peach. To me earlies never approach perfection, although Harrow Diamond packs a nice flavor on favorable years.
I’ve actually started to get some very good stonefruit in the last few days. Normal and Blue apricots (later is probably a plumcot) in the 20 brix range and peaches and nectarines in the 15 area. But this is from very pricey grocery stores ($4-7 per pound). I’ve pretty much given up on the generic “Eastern peach” that is generally available.
Even though I don’t have Rich May, I was still strangely happy and excited to read of the turnaround- it’s like when watching a baseball game and your team comes back in the 9th to win. Well, in this case, maybe it is extra innings.
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I simply won’t pay more than $3. I can wait for my own which are looking extremely promising. My orchard is very well established so there will be a continuous sequence of fruit beginning shortly. The nectarines look extremely promising- I must have about 10 varieties now.
Only thing that would likely stop it now is about 30 days of continuous rain.
Alan
Harrow Diamond looks pretty good. I notice is also a free stone. Wonder how it would do in NC?
If you can grow red haven I think you could grow harrow diamond.
Blueberry: As a FYI, my 2nd year Harrow Diamond did not handle the late spring freeze this year, had plenty of fruit buds but all were killed by the freeze. I had around 90% crop loss from the freeze. So other varieties did not do so well either.
I believe that most varieties touted for being more reliable after late frosts are those that have a long flowering period, such as Madison.
Looks like about 900 chill hours. When does it ripen compared to RedHaven? From what I can tell, it may hit about the same time as a peach I have called Ruby Prince.
Bout 3 weeks before Redhaven.
Alan
Looks like I may have a gap between my Ruby Prince (about same date as Harrow Diamond) and RedHaven. Since this is my first year, my yields are pretty low so its hard to tell if the gap is going to be a problem as I move forward. If my guess is correct, I may not have any peaches to sell during the July 4 holiday which is a very popular time for blue/blackberry on the farm. I have the space for another 15 tree row, but I’m getting older so adding more trees may not be a smart option.
Chris
Have you cropped your harrow diamond in previous years? I don’t see the tree listed in any southern nursery catalogs. Clemson gives the peach high marks but it gets ripe about the same time as my Ruby Prince which is designed for a climate like yours and mine.
Try a piece of wood on another peach tree and see how it works- 2 years will give you your first crop.
Blueberry, my HD is only in its second year so no crop yet with this years spring freeze. I purchased the tree from Cummins based off Alan and others recommendations on the old GW. The tree is vigorous and seems pretty happy here in the south. I also was growing a Ruby Prince but borers did it in so I hoping the HD will take its place.
Thanks Chris! Looks like HD is a great peach
I have seven variety of peaches that ripen in sequence from early June to early August. This is my first year with peaches, so I’m not sure if the sequence will provide the fresh peaches each week that I am hoping for. Most of my variety were chosen from a list of about 60 varieties grown by a commercial grower about an hour south. Hope I got things right, because I’m too old to remove variety I don’t like and replace them with something else! I’m on my third variety with no gaps so far. Hope to test my ability to use refrigeration to carry an over supply of one variety until the next variety gets ripe. About another week left on the Ruby Prince but the Newhaven are not close to ripe…
If you are looking for something a bit after Harrow Diamond and before Red Haven, Gold Dust would be a good one to check out.
I’ve only had a single peach from it (in 2nd leaf last year), but it was much better than the PF1 which I’d had a bit earlier. I know Scott has spoken highly of it in the past. I’m looking forward to a more substantial sample this year.