Nice pictures Steven. I am also growing Colorado Red Star artichokes this year. Mine are very small. I kind of like the way the plants look, I guess you can’t expect that much out of an artichoke grown as an annual. A neat experiment anyway. My kids had never eaten artichoke so they didn’t know what to think.
That is a lot of currants and gooseberries! We have made some excellent jam a few times this season with whatever was ripe and we couldn’t finish fresh: mostly goumis and jostaberries but a few strawberries, raspberries, and and gooseberries.
I think I’m just going to let the one plant I have go to flower this year. I might plant a row of them next year now that I know they’ll fruit here. That would make it worth the effort in processing them.
Stephen,
I am all green with envy!!!
Dud you hand pollinate your pawpaws?
Mine did not work out. I think my pawpaws flowers esp. Shenandoah were damaged by kate frost. They did not turn brown immediately but all dropped after they started to bloom.
My friend has a mature pawpaw tree with hundreds of flowers. He forgot to hand pollinate this year and got one cluster of fruit
I did but still didn’t get much fruit set. I’m not sure why. The spring we had certainly didn’t help though.
I actually saw one in a nearby neighborhood when I was taking a walk this spring. I was surprised because the tree had to be at least 20 years old. That was the first time I’d ever seen a cultivated pawpaw around here.
I have both and I’d say they’ve got a similar dark berry flavor profile. BNR seems to ripen a bit earlier than MR though. For rimadas, I’ve also got CdD Rimada, Paratjal Rimada, Tiger Panache, Fiorone Oro (Rosato), Rigato del Salento PB, and Baldufada Rimada. Baldufada Rimada seems to be the earliest ripening so far. Tiger Panache and CdD Rimada seem to be the latest.
Dark Star tomato has been a standout this year. It’s set huge amounts of fruit, they ripen early, and they’ve got that hard-to-describe smoky black tomato taste. It’s a hybrid, which I’m not a big fan of, so I’m thinking of growing out some seeds and seeing if they’re fairly true to type.
Did a pepper tasting over the weekend. Not everything was equally ripe, but Paradicsom was definitively the best of the bunch: sweet, crisp, dense, and a little fruity. It was just excellent and had the most unique flavor. Good as Gold was probably runner up. The others all tasted about the same.
Unknown Prosciutto. This may end up being the best fig I’ll have all season. It was unexpectedly excellent. It reminded me a lot of Bass’ Favorite, which was probably my best fig last year. Just a really rich, jammy, syrupy-thick fig. Kind of raspberry jam flavored.
Chiappetta is pretty good for a big fig. It has a honey/melon flavor. But it’s nice because it lingers and has more richness than a lot of my other honey figs, which tend to be simple in their sweetness – lacking depth.
