What did you do in your orchard today?

It's a toss up which will ripen next.

Seedling peach. I'm debating on pruning for another set of scaffolds or not. The existing scaffolds seem to be handling it's fruit load pretty well. But I am glad we thinned it twice.
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Or Loring. I have yet to prune for scaffolds.
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Jesus is Lord and Christ ✝️
 
Finnie said:
But still perfectly edible, right?
Click to expand...
I think the golden patches are russeting. Which occurs some seasons. Old school golden delicious is prone to russeting. I believe I recall reading russteting has mostly been bred out of modern day golden delicious apples. I've studied A LOT and my memory only holds so much information, thats why I said I recall. They bred an apple called golden russet it's parentage includes golden delicious.

I didnt want a modern golden delicious apple anyways. I wanted a old school golden delicious for flavor and crunch that I remember as a child. If the golden blotches are rustteting, which I believe they are. Then yes, it's absolutely perfectly acceptable to eat the apples, skin and all.

A few more pictures from this golden delicious tree all of it's apples have russeting to some degree or another.
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P.S. We had a huge golden delicious apple tree in the back yard of one of my child hood homes. My mom would send me out to pick them in the fall with a ladder. The tree was so productive, it fed the neighborhood. As a treat my mom would core some and bake them. She also would fry skinned chunks in butter, so delicious and warming when it was freezing outside 😋 But I liked to just wash them off and eat out of hand. That was equally as delicious and enjoyable to me. What I would give for some scions to graft from that tree. But it's gone now, cut down and dead. Hopefully this tree will be close enough...

Jesus is Lord and Christ ✝️
 
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Yesterday evening I sampled my farm store end of season rescue peach that was labeled contender. The poor tree was in bad shape but for 1/2 off and 6 plus foot tall I couldn't help but purchase it and try to nurse it back to health. It had one small fruitlet on it. That one lone peach made it back to the farm and ripened yesterday.

I picked it and and cut it in half. I gave 1/2 to FB and we eat it. It was a free stone so the pit basicly fell out. I think this contender rescue peach is my favorite peach so far. But FB said she likes red haven better. Red haven is more sweet and less tang. Contender seemed to have the right ballance of sweet and peachy tang for me.

Knowing full well that this labeled contender peach ripened way earlier than it's supposed to (mid August). I'm still pretty confident its true to it's label. Its hit or miss with potted peach trees from retail stores, since they are often mislabeled and you have zero recourse for a refund or replacement. The peach probably ripened early due to stress it endured. Yet still it still produced a high quality peach, so I'm hopeful. I left some side growth to prune off and graft onto rootstock this spring.

single contender, I sure would like more of these.
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We still have 3 varieties left to sample, once they tree ripen. But no sooner than august 1st, due to PHI observance.

Jesus is Lord and Christ ✝️
 
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