The temperatures have finally gone down just a bit, so I can’t complain about the heat as much now…. We’ve been picking peaches and vegetables non-stop all week.
Peaches – We’re rotating through three varieties right now: Flamin’ Fury PF-9, Starfire, and Redhaven. When I say “rotating,” it’s because we re-pick each tree every two to three days until there’s nothing left to make sure we’re picking the peaches at exactly the right time. It requires a lot more work to do things this way, but it’s one of the main reasons our peaches are so good.
Apples – We finished picking the Pristine, so we have a good supply of this excellent summer apple. If you haven’t baked or cooked with Pristine yet, you should try it in a pie or for sauce. A lot of orchards that grow summer apples have completely replaced their Lodi and/or Transparent with Pristine. We’re not thinking of doing that at this point, but I do think it’s a much superior apple to the other two. We also have just a little bit of McIntosh left from the fall.
U-Pick – There are still some good blueberries left on our late varieties. There are also some blackberries, and very small scattering of red raspberries. The blackberries are pretty thorny, so if you’re picking, I advise a glove to move the canes around. The good berries like to hide in the canes. U-pick is almost over for us until we start u-picking apples in late September.
Veggies – My dad started picking our first sweet corn this week, so we’ve got our delicious bicolor corn in the market now. We’ll have white corn ready soon. We also started picking our eggplant this week. I’m trying two new varieties this year. We have a long skinny one and a short fat one. If you have any opinions on it after you try it, please let know. More vegetables are coming soon.
You can always stay up to date on availability by checking out or What’s Ripe page. I update it daily this time of year.
(Sort Of) New Hours – Since we’re almost done with u-pick berries, starting next week we’re not going to have the early u-pick hour any more. We’re going back to our 9am opening time on Tuesdays-Saturdays. Our full hours are Tues-Sat 9-6 and Sundays 11-5.
When will you be picking red haven peaches?
By the end of the month. Probably about a week.
I missed the blackberrries this year, and discovered they have been taken out. I was just wondering why, and will more be planted? They are the most nutritious berries.
Thank you
The variety we have had the last few years were very thorny and practically no one wanted to pick them. I am considering planting more, but the good thornless varieties require putting in an expensive trellis, so at this point I haven’t made up my mind.