Lately i have grown an interest in red fleshed fruit. I already had a red fleshed peach variety, very common over here, that i remembered fondly from when i was young and was one of the first i planted.
Recently i have included a couple more and i just love the looks and flavor of these peaches.
Even more recently i have added several new varieties of red fleshed apples. According to the sellers they are less acidic and have more sugar than the old red fleshed varieties (some of these old ones were just curiosities because of the high acid content).
I only had one variety that produced. I planted it last year and left one apple in the tree. Nothing to write home about in terms of flavour, but usually the first fruits have this problem - it happened with my red fleshed peaches, that were very bad in the first year, dry and flavourless and now are juicy and full of flavour.
I also love the young red leaves and red flowers of these apples. The contrast with my other varieties is stunning.
Some photos.
Red fleshed peaches
(portuguese variety - Preto Carnudo - hard flesh)
I usually only have 350-450 chill hours over here (more in exceptional years) and the peaches have produced (not many but they are still young trees so in the next couple of years i will find out more)
Regarding the apples i will have to wait and see, as i donāt have the chill needs information for these varieties. But, for the record, i have several apple varieties that need in excess of 700-800 hours and they all produce.
I even have a northern portuguese variety (Bravo de Esmolfe) - a āwildā apple that has a very distinct flavour and is much appreciated, at the point of being sold in major supermarkets when available - i like it very much so i planted a few trees (i had few hopes as they are rated as needing 1000-1200 hours) and to my surprise they produced, not much, but enough for my needs.
In my short experience i think that apples are much more forgiving regarding chill hours than other fruit types (like cherries for instance - i will be needing low chill varieties for sure)
