Good Brix Peaches

Last year I came across a peach orchard on a trip home from Charlottesville. Their Loring peaches (Prunus persica 'Loring') I bought measured over 14º Bx, which is in the "good" column. (Poor is 6ºBx, Average is 9.3ºBx and excellent is over 17.3ºBx.) Before last summer, I had not had a decent peach since I moved farther north. Grocery store peaches rarely measure over 6º Bx. The 14º+ peaches were so tasty that I am sure if I find a peach in the excellent category, it will be sheer ecstasy.

Two weeks ago (April 4th) driving on the same route, I detoured to see how the peach blossoms were opening, since so much else was blooming along the way. As you can see, they were coming along nicely, and the fully-opened ones were luscious-looking and fragrant. We have had frost twice since then and peach blossoms are very susceptible to frost but hopefully they were not in the frost warning area.

I also didn't notice many bees. Maybe that was just timing, and not an indication of yet more damage to our bee population.