I found my first strawberry today, what a surprise! And it was actually sweet, after all that cold and rainy weather.
My first strawberries just ripened today as well. I meant to pick them in the morning, but forgot and picked these by flashlight around 10pm when I got home.
These are an unknown variety- I bought a single “Ozark Beauty” from Home Depot 5 years ago. I know it isn’t that, as it is June bearing, not everbearing. The plants which produced this spread from the original over the years and are now growing in one of my fruit tree rows.
I’m surprised that they got ripe so early this year. The spring started pretty late and most years I don’t get any until May 31st or June 1st. I guess it has been hot and sunny for so long that it accelerated things.
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Hi All, this is the time I (like many of us) have been waiting for!!! Have harvested and eaten here in metro Atlanta: Ozark strawberries, Oneal blueberries and Crimson Red raspberries. I am anxiously waiting on the super sweet apricots ( 5 on the tree) they have turned a nice yellow orange. I will post pics soon! Happy eating everyone, we all deserve it!!! Beautiful pics everyone!!
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I ate my first cot-n-candy of the season today and it was excellent, so much better than flavor delight.
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Agree with your accessment. But to me it says more about the poor quality of FD than the excellence of CNC.
Do you have yellow flesh apricots for comparison? I like Tomcot, Robada, and Orangered better than CNC.
The only other apricot tree I have that is productive is Blenheim. I do have a leah cot aprium , white knockout and orange knockout apricots that I planted this year. I haven’t planted a lot of apricot trees because during a normal year, we’ll get a late freeze and lose most blossoms due to the early bloom. I would love to find another apricot variety that is firm when ripe. That’s why I planted orange knockout. I tried it at a fruit tasting last year and it was firm, almost crunchy and very sweet.
I was wondering about Orange Knockout. Bay Laurel started offering it a few yrs ago but you are the only one I’ve heard about who’s planted one. Please keep us updated if you can get it to fruit. Bay Laurel says it has a very intense flavor. I figured that meant tart. But maybe not.
Have never heard of White Knockout. Who carries that?
Always love your reports!!
I partially agree with @fruitnut’s comment about the lower quality of Flavor Delight, but the relative quality of pit fruits also depends upon the tree having sufficient (and not an over abundance) of potash – either as a soil nutrient in the prior year or to a lesser degree as a foliar supplement. Specifically, a Flavor Delight from one grower could be nearly equivalent to a Cot-N-Candy from another – although in the same yard under the same cultural practices the differences would be noticeable.
FN- both Orange knock out and White knock out are from Burchell. I bought mine from a local nursery, I don’t know who would ship them.
Richard- My Flavor Delight and Cot-n-Candy are right next to each other and get the same amount of water and fertilizer… FD has bigger fruit but has always been bland compared to CnC and even Blenheim. FD isn’t a terrible piece of fruit, I’m not ready to rip it out or anything.
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Derby, your nanking looks like a cherry. My nanking look like sort of plum… has a point at the end 
I finally get it to set handful of fruits
I planted a whole row of them down the fence for a hedge between me and the neighbors drive so they pollinat each other. This is the first year they had a crop. It is their third summer here.
Ate my first raspberry today. It was a Jaclyn. Need to get a whole lot more in order to bring the cost per unit into the realm of something that still might not be reasonable, but at least less outrageous than the good 40 hours worth of effort, water and price of 20 dormant canes that single berry represented. 
There are other berries ripening or developing on all 4 varieties. It’s an almost daily question how many the birds, borers, aphids/mealybugs, and other sucking insects that seem to be racing to suck the canes, leaves, and stems dry, will let mature for harvest.
I enjoyed that delicate berry. Everyone in the house had been warned 2 days ahead not to touch it, because it was mine unless a bird interfered.
I just look at it as the labor of love. There is no way to justify my cost per fruit as of now. My time with the fruit trees is my special place just for me to unwind. Bill
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I usually feel like that, too. Except lately the cane borers and array of sucking insects that have a strong attraction to the Prime Ark Freedoms and the raspberries, I’ve felt more aggressive than relaxed out there.
Fruit growing reminds me of the old ABC Wide World of Sports intro… the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2AZH4FeGsc
I’ll take the ups and downs any day over a flat road.
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I’ve discovered that my strawberries are stolen! Must be those dreadful rabbits…
And here’s what’s left of our first harvest!
From this raised bed…
Looks like you need to do an Elmer Fudd here. They’re just leaving enough to feed the slugs.
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Broccoli, and sugar snap leaves no beans yet.