Just a Boring August Update

My first batch of peaches in July were awful. The bugs had almost completely destroyed the fruit before it ever had a chance to get ripe. I got to eat a few but that was only because I was willing to eat around to cut out the damaged parts. I never would have bought any peaches that looked as bad as mine. I may have found the solution to my problem.





My other peach tree, the Belle of Georga, is starting to ripen now and there's no insect damage. It' s late enough in the season that there aren't as many bugs around now. I found a semi-soft peach yesterday and ate the softest half right off the tree just to see how they tasted. It was a little crunchier than I like but really sweet. White flesh instead of the yellow flesh on my Gala peach. The few I picked today will need a couple of days on the counter to ripen but they look great.




If these work out well, I might order a couple of more Bell of Georga peach trees in the spring.

As you can see, we've also got tomatoes, (on the bottom of the basket) and all the grapes are ripe now. 6 varieties. 3 seedless (one of which has seeds - I don't know why), and 3 with seeds. I prefer seedless grapes but had read that the seeded varieties produce bigger fruit so I tried both. I could fill this basket 10 times with just bunches of grapes but how many grapes can one family really eat? I've never heard of frozen or canned grapes so I guess the rest will go to waste.

The best in my opinion are the white Lakemont seedless (Just like the white grapes in the supermarket), the red Reliance seedless (same variety as the supermarket) and the dark purple Concord seeded grapes.

Concord are what's used to make grape juice and they taste just like grape juice. I also have a variety called Glenora that's dark purple. This tastes just like grape soda. I never realized that the grape flavor in grape juice was different than the grape flavor in grape soda until I tried these grapes.

The fire blight I haven't seen in a month or more has shown up again on a pear tree. Since the limb is dead all the way to the trunk, I had to cut several inches of the top of the trunk. This meant cutting off one of my 5 remaining pears. It's not ready yet but I took a bite anyway. Needs another month.





The sugar sorghum seed heads (say that 3 times fast) are starting to turn orange. I'm going to try to use the seedheads like any other variety of sorghum. Sorghum is grown in Africa and the Middle East as food for people and animals. My dad actually grew several acres of sorghum as a grain crop when I was a kid growing up on a farm. My parents had a bird seed store and mixed their own seed. Millet (sorghum seeds) was one of the ingredients in their mixed bird seed.




When this stuff is used as people food, they toast the seeds and then boil them with water to make a porage similar to oatmeal. Mixed with milk and sugar it's eaten in lots of places, just not here. I'll let you know how it turns out in a month or so.