Tuesday, August 14, 2007

The king of peaches

Well I think Redhaven is the king of peaches here in Massachusetts. A fairly bud-hardy, reliable and heavy cropper with classic yellow-peach flavor that ripens in mid-August. Size is very good, almost 3 inches. The only real downside I can think of is it does not have as much red color as some of the newer varieties. BTW, Redhaven was introduced in 1940 by the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station in East Lansing. If someone thinks something is wrong with Redhaven, I would like to hear about it. It makes a great perpendicular-V tree.

I also picked my first 'donut' peaches ever -- Njf16 in the ACNursery catalog. (Holy cow! $4.50 royalty -- who's getting rich?) These are young trees, so there were only a few of these 'peento' peaches. Kind of attractive, high in sugar. A little russet where fruit was oriented on top/bottom of branches -- my New Jersey source tells me care should be taken when hand-thinning these to leave fruit on their sides, not oriented up or down. They were quite firm to the touch but clearly ripe. I am looking forward to having more of these next year -- I am not sure why they don't give them a name? Joe? Phil? (You know who your are...)

2 comments:

Andre Tougas said...

I have always preferred Canadian Harmony over Red Haven. www.tougasfam.com

Frank Carlson said...

I don't think that Canadian Harmony is as winter hardy as it is described to be. It does come thru, but is not a big producer.