Thread to track my BYOC project

In my opinion Beauty is the best of the Japanese plums.

Yet to taste Beauty, will look out for it @ the farmers market.

July 2018 Berry Harvest.

Anne & Polka Raspberries were good.
Prime Ark Freedom Blackberry was excellent, very sweet, hardly any seeds. Had a hint of bitter.
Mara Des Bois was outstanding, better than any strawberry desert! Also smells amazing.

https://youtu.be/cEAGT3RW01g

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Queen of the strawberries in my opinion.

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More Berries -

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Pluots, Pluerry, Peach

Indian Free Peach was very unique.
Candy Heart Pluerry was very sweet.
Flavor King and Grenade was just meh - will work on improving brix for next year.

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Did you do enough thinning for the king and grenade? I wonder what else could have ruined the flavor…

Yes, definitely need to do more thinning for next year and planning to try out some tips here to improve brix - Building up the Brix for Healthier, Nutrient-Dense Crops

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That’s an interesting article.I’ve never taken a brix reading from the leaves.Brady

I have the same problem with my cherries. Squirrels, chipmunks, coons, and birds! They must be thinking I better get these before the human does.

Here are some pics and videos of harvest for the rest of 2018

Fuji apples were really good but I forgot to take pictures / videos
The berries from September/October were delicious
The Meyer lemons were super juicy!
Although the Washington Navel Oranges were plenty and juicy and great quality the brix was way too low :frowning:

For 2019, I am seriously going to focus on getting the Brix up on some of my fruits…

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2019 06 14 Rapunzel / Snack time / Honey Halo Yellow Donut Nectarine → My first nectarine for the season

This is a Yellow Donut Nectarine from Burschell Nursery. I tasted these at Andys Orchard fruit tasting in 2017. It was one of the best fruits I’ve eaten!!! So I decided to grow it. This tree is a little bit of a mystery - So when Andys Orchard got this tree, they had ordered a Snack Time nectarine that’s a white nectarine but ended up getting a yellow nectarine. So they named it Rapunzel. After emailing with Andy , we came to the conclusion that they may have shipped him Honey Halo Nectarine instead of the Snack Time. So I ordered both. My Honey Halo has not fruited yet but the Snack Time did and mine wasn’t a white nectarine either! The quality of my fruit was ok to good, nothing to call home about… Brix was around 13 with a slight hint of acid. The one I had at Andy’s was out of the world!!! I am undecided if I should give this tree another year or pull it out…

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Give it at least two more years, if not three. You can’t have an objective evaluation of a variety with its first crop. If you need the space, you can keep one scaffold and graft on the others. The question that comes to my mind is: does it’s ripening time match that of Andy’s Rapunzel?

Your right! And very good question. I’ll find out tomorrow when I go to the fruit tasting event at Andys Orchard.

They had Rapunzel and a few other early peaches and nectarines at today’s tour at Andy’s Orchard ( It was mostly cherries though). Looks like Rapunzel is an early nectarine for sure. Given the heavy May rains here, it was not a great year. Rapunzel tasted very good but not as awesome as it did at the 2017 fruit tasting! Looks like Rapunzel = Snack Time. Based on harvest time and the description posted today. Pic below

Rapunzel

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Californians aren’t as used to factoring in the weather when evaluating the quality of fruit of any given variety, but I assume it can be a big issue with very early varieties when you have an extended rain season and particularly cool weather. If the weather is highly unusual, you can pretty much throw out the evaluations for the season- as long as it isn’t the new “normal”.

We’ve had successive monsoon growing seasons here in the east coast and may be heading for a third, although it’s too early to say. Spring has been very wet though. Many varieties have been adversely affected by the many extended cool, wet periods from spring through summer.

Varieties and species both respond differently to any given conditions. Here it takes about 10 years to really get a handle on any given variety, but that doesn’t stop us from jumping to conclusions! Impatience and passion ride on the same train.

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That’s very insightful, and applies to many aspects of life besides fruit growing.

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Yup, I specialize in obvious metaphors. Sometimes they hit the nail on the head. :wink:

Thanks.

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Finally seeing some good brix!
Here is my Flavor Supreme Pluot at 17 brix! :slight_smile: Great piece of fruit! Only negative is the tart skin.

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I learnt some very useful tips on improving brix in this forum - it did make a big difference in the quality of my Eva’s Pride Peach harvest this year!!! Many thanks to those who helped me out here… :slight_smile:

I really enjoyed the excellent peach flavor on this fruit - If the brix was 16-18 instead of 10-12 it would have been so much better. I think I need to get even more aggressive on watering for next year.

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