Also forgot to mention I picked up some Honey Royale nects from Sam’s along with some purple rose apriums. The Apriums were dynamite! 21 brix, crunchy, good balance. The HR were horrible. Money down the drain. Felt good and smelled good but the flesh was mushy. When I squeezed it to get a sample for the refractometer the thing was so mushy it wouldn’t produce juice. In the end they were 13 brix. Hope the Honey Royale I grafted this spring produces better fruit than that.
Fantasia nectarines, first time eating them. They came off a 2 year old tree, citation rootstock, very large, highly flavored. I would call it a strong clasic nectarine flavor, sweet with some acid. The flesh is tinged with red. The problem is there were only 6 on the tree, and I only got 3 before something cleaned me out. Something also got more than half of my spice z nectaplums. But anyway if you like that clasic nectarine taste this is a good one.
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Sunhigh, Pristine, and White Lady for breakfast today- as grown by a local farmer. The season of plenty is upon us.
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White Lady is delicious. Mild sweet flavor. Freestone and luscious when fully ripe. Look at the juice welling up. One of the great early-mid season white peaches for the Mid-Atlantic.
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Those Redhaven’s look very nice, Drew. Didn’t you mention in another post that these are your first peaches in many years because of freezes @ bloom time? Or maybe it was somebody else.
I assume after a week y’all have ate all of those. How is the taste on them? We planted a Redhaven and Coralstar earlier this year, and I’m curious on the flavor. Also, how old is your tree and how much fruit did you get off of it this year?
My two trees were bare root trees from Cummins, we planted them at the end of March, and I headed them at about 30 inches. Since then they’ve shot out quite a few little branches, and quite a few leaves, but they haven’t grown much in height. Plus, some leaves at first were yellowing and falling off, which I believe was because we had a wet and cool spring. They look a bit better now.
Again, congrats on the harvest.
That looks great. I have some local to me Pristine apples picked at the right time and am impressed. I may need to add them to my line up.
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Subdood -
Thanks!
Those were the first peaches I have ever had that I have grown myself!
The tree was from Lowes so was probably 2 years old rather than a 1 year old whip planted in 2014. It was on sale and a better price than bare root. We had -18°F in Jan. 2015 and I didnt have a single blossom that survived in spring 2015. I am not sure what our lowest low was this last winter (I have it recored somewhere). Somewhere around -15°F, I think. Then we had that late cold snap of 18°F this spring when things were near bloom. This is all to say that my bloom was light this year.
The yield was those peaches you see in the picture.
We have been eating Missouri peaches from the supermarket for the last month. The BYO tree ripened Redhaven were sweeter and slightly less acid than the MO peaches. More peachy flavor too. I can see the reason for Redhaven being the gold standard for peaches (+/- Redhaven for ripening).
My Redhaven drops yellow leaves until just after the solstice. But I don’t have leaf curl fully under control with copper sprays in dormant season. It seems fine despite some leaf loss. It is better this year than last since I did spray this spring. I think I will add a spray at the rec 80% leaf drop.
It needs some pruning to bring it back down to within ladder reach. Though with IA winters and my frost pocket yard taller might be better.
I had some emerald drop and flavor queen pluots today. Nearly non stop rain in jully has affected the flavor on all of my pluots ripening now, but still better than plums. I would say here this year the queen seems to be the least effected by the rain, and taste better than emerald drop.
So, how tall was it when you bought it, and how much has it grown since you planted it? Like I said above, we topped the two trees at about 30 inches per the instructions, and there hasn’t been a lot of vertical growth. But, it has shot out some decent sized little branches. They’ve only been in the ground for about 4 months, so maybe I’m expecting too much too soon.
I must say, though, most of my bareroot apple trees has shot out some really nice branches, especially with a vigorous central leader.
So, if you planted it in 2014, and it was prob a 2yr old plant then, then it produced in its 4th year?
I bought and planted a Winesap apple and a Moonglow pear tree from Lowe’s this spring. Both of the plants were in 5 gal plastic pots and were about 5-6 feet tall, so I bet they were also 2yr plants. They had many branches on them. The Winesap even shot out lots of leaves and even some blooms when it came out of dormancy. The pear didn’t do much but did have loads of leaves.
Unfortunately, back in May, a deer pretty much stripped the apple tree of leaves and blooms up to about 4 feet. But it has nicely recovered since I put on new leaves since I fenced it in.
A lot of my apple and pear trees seem to have got a pretty bad case of cedar apple rust on the leaves, and maybe even some fireblight. Plus, some insects shredded quite a few if the leaves. I hope that this doesn’t affect its future growth. How do y’all treat CAR, or is that something you can’t treat once it starts? Maybe you spray a preventative on the tree while dormant?
OK sorry for all the questions. I probably should start a new thread about this issue. Sorry for the thread highjack.
I love my Coralstars
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So, @BobC, you were able to get peaches this year? We were going to try some at a large orchard about an hour or so from here, and they said no peaches for this year! I was bummed, as they have both CS and RH varieties, among others, and I wanted a “sneak peek” at what they might taste like. I assume they had a blossom killing freeze this year. But yours made it thru the cold apparently. But, they will have apples, and they just happen to be growing 9 of the varieties we’ve planted. So, we forward to trying out some of those.
How old are your trees and how soon did they start producing? Also, do you remember how much they grew in the first year, and the second? Like I mentioned above, our little peach whips, while they’ve put out a lot of little sprigs and leaves, it doesn’t seem like they’ve grown “up” much since we planted them in early April. Guess I’m expecting too much too soon…
Subdood -
The peach tree was probably 4.5 feet tall with several (poorly selected) scaffold branches at about 3 feet. I’ve pruned some of the bad scaffold branches out, but it is now probably 10-12 feet tall.
The tree would have probably produced in its (presumed) 3rd year, but for the flower-killing winter lows in 2015. There were flower buds there, but they all were black and fell off in the spring. I think that most peaches should produce fruit in their third year. Someone here calls them a perennial weed, which I concur with.
My advice would be to get the structure of the peach tree right now. Get a nice low open center to it, with scaffolds nicely spread around the tree. The deer pretty much leave my peach alone, so this is a plus and leads me to believe I might be able to keep peaches lower than my apples (which the deer love).
The whole fruiting on last years wood seems to make peaches hard to prune for me. I can’t decide whether to prune some now, or wait to see what the depths of winter bring.
I have Coralstar and Cresthavens that produce very well and are the size between baseballs and softballs. They do very well here and started around the 3 year mark. These trees are from Van Wells and were 5/8 inch when received. They grew fairly fast and actually my Cresthaven had so many peaches on it and with a big wind took out a large limb that I am trying to replay by budding/grafting on to now. Had some Belle of Georgia’s this year that are a creamy white peach that were very tasty as well.
Thanks @BobC and @Levers101 for the replies. As I mentioned above, these were from Cummins, and I think the caliper was 7/16". I topped them at about 30".
It sounds like your trees have grown pretty fast. I’m a bit concerned my little whips are growing “up” too slowly. @BobC, I assume your Van Wells trees weres bare root? How much did they grow the first year after you put them in the ground? I know you sometimes put your bareroots in a pot, then transplant, so it may not be a valid question.
I’ve heard good reviews of Belle of Georgia, but have had trouble finding them. Where did you get yours?
they were bareroot trees and I didn’t put them in pots as they arrived early enough to put them in the ground unlike the Starkbro trees. I don’t remember exactly how fast they grew other than they did grow very fast… was surprised by all the fruit I had on them so soon. I would say 3-4 years I had plenty of fruit on them. Picked some today and man are they good!! Have to keep a napkin with you or you become a mess.
The Belle of Georgia was purchased at a box store Lowes or Home Depot… or even could of been Odd Lots… They are very common to see for a very small price in this area.
Do those pie pans work??? Next year i need to rethink this bird/squirrel stuff. Mr Black squirrel showed up today again looking for lunch… not sure we’ll be seeing him anymore.
Picked all the satsuma… eating a few Superior (pretty good if you can get past the skin/Alderman—huge but meh)… I’m chopping one of my white peaches…i’m not positive which one it is because the tag fell off…but it’s garbage…it’s simple to grow, produces every year (potted) but just tastes like not good (not compared to say Saturn)… gone.
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