Early August zone 7b fruit crops

[TriangleJohn]

Things are bone dry here in Raleigh NC but it looks like all my hard work watering is paying off with bumper crops of fruit. I've harvested most of the fall crop of Blackberries (Prime Ark Freedom) and the table grapes (Fredonia) have been made into jelly - sorry no photos of either of them, but here's what else is going on in the backyard:


Ogeechee Lime - actually a Tupelo not a citrus



unnamed pricky pear - cactus do fine here if you plant them in a mound of gravel. The fruit doesn't seem to have the intensity of flavor I remember from out west so I plan on harvesting these early and see if that helps.



Cranberries - you don't need bog but you do need acid soil and near constant weeding to keep them happy.



no name trees grown from seed (from named cultivars). The worst thing about pawpaws is that you get a landslide of fruit at one time. Kitchen fridge is full, basement chest freezer is full...



Everything else in the veggie garden is crispy yet this one lonely rhubarb keeps chugging along (don't tell him that we've been over 100 degrees)



Got watermelons planted late but even with the drought they're happy.

[Triloba Tracker]

Wow, looks great!
That's pretty early for pawpaws - I think a few trees round here had ripe fruit this early last year but I think we're slower this year due to milder temps.

How do your seedling fruits measure up to their parents?

[TriangleJohn]

TT - I never got a taste of the seed source fruit. Friends that work for a local nursery told me how wonderful the fruit was and said that they had collected the seed to grow out and sell. I bought four seedlings from them. My taste buds are not as refined as others and I don't pick up a lot of differences in the various named fruits. I have had one that did taste more like a mango than anything else (not from my trees). I have had fruit that taste wonderful along side fruit that was just so-so and they both came off the same tree at the same time. This year the fruit is just okay, nothing special. This could be due to the odd weather we have had so far - wet mild spring after very warm winter with hard freeze in April and now blistering hot and bone dry. Everything has been early in the garden this year.

[Citradia]

My paw paws are not ripe yet. Usually not ripe here until a ways into September. Cool summer here; barely getting into the 80's last week. Don't think I've hit 90 degrees this year, and my citrus hasn't grown much at all. Plenty of rain too. Highs in 70's predicted this week. I didn't know the ogeechee lime was a type of tupelo; I have wild tupelo with small black fruit on it in my yard.

[TriangleJohn]

Citradia - I have Black tupelo in the woods beside the house also. The dogs snarf up the fruit when it falls (mid July this year), I've tasted it and found it way astringent and harsh but people supposedly make jelly with it.

[Citradia]

Yeah, I'd rather make jelly out of crabapple or peaches, or even wild persimmon preserves than try to mess with tiny fruits like tupelo or elder berries, or service berry; would be exhausting trying to pick enough. Oh, my paw paws make great preserves.

[Triloba Tracker]

Yeah, I'd rather make jelly out of crabapple or peaches, or even wild persimmon preserves than try to mess with tiny fruits like tupelo or elder berries, or service berry; would be exhausting trying to pick enough. Oh, my paw paws make great preserves.

i finally got to taste serviceberry/juneberry this year, from a bush in a bank parking lot. I was quite surprised at how good they were. I would eat them by the handfuls if I could.
Considering planting a few of 'em.

I would love to see your persimmon and pawpaw preserves recipes (if there even is a recipe - I don't know anything about preserves/jam/jelly making).

[Triloba Tracker]

My paw paws are not ripe yet. Usually not ripe here until a ways into September. Cool summer here; barely getting into the 80's last week. Don't think I've hit 90 degrees this year, and my citrus hasn't grown much at all. Plenty of rain too. Highs in 70's predicted this week. I didn't know the ogeechee lime was a type of tupelo; I have wild tupelo with small black fruit on it in my yard.

Yes, so oddly cool here, overall, this summer, especially the last week and into the next several days.
Not as cool as you seem to have been, however. (Obviously, different climate).

[Citradia]

I got my persimmon and paw paw recipes off internet. Haven't made the persimmon preserves since 2007; my grandma loved persimmon and I made her some preserves that year just before she passed away. The bears have been getting my persimmons the past few years. Knock on wood, the critters haven't been after the paw paws like they do everything else.