Haha I think I saw the peach bloom in the avatar and just assumed female! I promise I’m not usually that sexist!
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You have a great quince collection. What are your favorite varieties for fresh eating? I’d love to graft a few other varieties on my tree to try them out.
Lol,
It’s been a while since I’ve been gender mistook. It used to happen more regularly on the old forum.
I still get quite a chuckle about it, mostly because my close friends (like you Tippy) know that not only do I think like a male, but my appearance as a male is slightly imposing, especially when I was in my youth (6-2" and 220#). I tower over my wife, even though she goes nose to nose with me in our disagreements. 
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Yeah, I have tried to find other reports of the strawberry free peach being large but can’t find any either. I just know those peaches at the market are huge. I think their orchard is inland quite a bit from me in a much warmer climate, so I don’t know if I will be able to get the same quality they get. If I can manage to hit the market at the right time this June, I will try to find them again and take a picture (and ask more questions).
Also I was only able to find Strawberry Free on citation, so that won’t help my fruit size I am sure.
Glohaven is a large peach.
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This might be a good place to mention that I’m a woman 
My name (Christian) doesn’t let y’all know that.
I’ve read JH Hale is supposed to be a big peach? I don’t know yet, but I will later this year if pollination went OK. The freezes cooperated for the most part
Ha! I remember at some point thinking you were a lady, but thought I was mistaken because of your name. Thanks for mentioning that.
JH Hale is a peach I’ve not grown, but have read it’s big. Autumnstar is also a big peach. It’s currently the world record holder for the heaviest peach.
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Thanks for this… I had never heard of Autumnstar, and upon looking it up, I came across Van Well nursery who also recommends Red Globe, Coral Star, Gloria, Glohaven (also mentioned on this thread), and Sweet Cap (large donut peach) for large size.
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Mark,
I did not know that AS holds a world recird of the heaviest peach!!!
Our AS is about the same size as our PF 24 C in the 4-5 years that they have produced. Both have good size and good taste, to me and to all the family members, friends and neighbors.
I think the one you already have is the best Crimea :). But I haven’t tasted it last few years with the squirrels. maybe Aromatnaya and Kuganskaya are comparable. Kaunching has some disease in the wood every year (not sure what it is, maybe fireblight?), I may cut it down.
While I can’t yet speak to the quality of the freakishly large Hanners Best, I can give an enthusiastic endorsement to another (not quite so) large apple: Spigold.
Like some other Northern Spy relatives, it has a reputation for being slow to come into bearing. I grafted it onto a mature tree in 2015, and got a heavy harvest from it last season. It’s a vigorous triploid, and put on a lot of growth in that time. The apples were huge and really tasty; they were a hit with everyone here at Casa Manana. Spigold’s a winner, at least in my climate.
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Thanks for the info… I grafted Spigold last year and was not aware of its large size. I look forward to seeing how it does for us!
Here’s my first Hanner’s Best of the year. It’s a too-early drop due to some damage around the stem. Dunno if it would have grown any larger if it had been allowed to ripen, but it’s already a pound and a half. The tree is still quite young, about six feet tall.
There are a few more on the tree, so I should be able to report on the quality soon. It’s probably a lot like Spokane Beauty.
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Wow! That’s amazing! I’m very interested to hear about the overall quality.
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I’ll let you know once the others are fully ripe.
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Howgate Wonder is too a very large apple variety. There are claims that it could reach 4 pounds:
http://www.gardenappleid.co.uk/index.php/iw-apples/7-howgate-wonder
It has the largest fruits among my apples this year, which is it’s first fruiting year.
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Oh yeah! I thought the Hanners Best were a more green colored apple. I want this tree!
I wonder if anyone has scions for this tree (Hanners Best) 
that is awesome sounding 
The way to get bigger fruit is to thin more and water more. More thinning improves fruit quality. More water can reduce brix and quality. Large fruited varieties are often of poor quality. I’m never choosing size over quality. Choosing larger fruited varieties of lesser quality is a poor substitute for more thinning.
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Still the genetics are interesting in a fruit that size 
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