From: "William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Picking unripe fruit
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:31:42 -0500
Stone fruits ripen fine with or without stem attached. You can speed it up
by putting them in a paper bag. They also go from ripe to overripe pretty
easily.
But SHOULD I ripen them this way, or let them fully ripen on the tree?
Being new at this, I'm having a particular problem with my Hardired
Giant Nectarines (giant? - they're actually very small - perhaps I
didn't thin them enough?). They are bright red, but small and very hard.
The birds have just been destroying them, so I finally netted the whole
tree. They don't seem to be ripe, but should I ripen them indoors?
I had this problem last year (the first year I got any fruit), too. I
just couldn't figure out when to pick them. (They seem to turn red long
before they're ripe.) Then, the squirrels got after them so bad that I
had to pick them to get any at all. They seemed to stay pretty hard,
although they were tasty, after ripening indoors for a few days.
This year, the electric wires have kept the squirrels out of my backyard
(so far), but the birds - mostly blue jays and robins, it seems - have
been really bad. They peck holes in the fruit, which then rots. Just one
fruit after another. But now that I have netting up, I should be OK. But
I'm still unsure about picking them. (This applies to my peaches, too,
but last year the nectarines ripened first, then one peach variety after
another.)
Any advice?
Thanks,
Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)
--
I love those folks who helped get us in this mess, and suddenly they
say, "This is Obama's economy." That's fine. Give it to me. My job is to
solve problems, not stand on the sidelines and carp and gripe. -
President Barack Obama