First, the good news...
This week we will be picking some our very best peaches of the season--Jersey Queens, Monroes, and J. H. Hales. Size is very good. Flavor, texture, and juiciness great! All are great for canning and freezing.
 Still have a few more Georgia Belles to pick. Should be able to start picking our last white sub-acid variety, Snow Giant, in about two weeks. Will be pick Elbertas next week.
This week we will be picking Starking Delicious plums. What deliciously flavored plums! Deep red flesh and juicy. Great for making plum preserves. You need to try!
Have a good crop of Stanley prunes. Should be able to start picking in a couple of weeks.
Bunch grapes are ripe. Now picking Vanessa, an adherent skin, very sweet seedless pink table grape; Mars, a blue/black slip skin, seedless table grape and Fredonia, an early ripening Concord type grape. It will be at least 10 days before Concord are ripe.
 We have an excellent crop of Asian Pear Apples. For the next month we will be picking most every day. Come and get them!
Last weekend for blackberries and blueberries. We will have a few quarts available.
First good Fig crop in three years. Have made and will be making more Fig preserves. Also have freshly picked Figs by the quart. But they sell out very fast each day.
Now for some difficult and bad news...
We will not be doing boiled Fresh Green Peanuts this year. The Georgia farmer that grows the peanuts special for boiling is my age and has encountered a serious health problem. Is not growing such peanuts this year.
Apples: Mother Nature and other farming problems have pretty well devastated this year's crop. Apples bloomed with peaches, two to three weeks early. We encountered a Fireblight infection like we have never seen before. Not just blossom blight strikes, but new shoot blight strikes that just went on and on. None of the treatment we normally use to control would even slow it down. Our battle came to saving trees. Much of the crop was already lost.
We will have no early apples (Ginger Gold and Honeycrisp). We might have a few Galas. Won't have any apples until after Labor Day.
Our challenge over the next three months is to bank enough money to operate the farm next year. Please come see us often. We need your help and support greatly this season.
Need your help in another way, too! Last week I stopped by the wooden basket making plant outside of Columbia to pick up a supply of peck and half bushel handle baskets. Much to my surprise they were sold out of both and had a sizeable order waiting list. If you should have either of these wooden handle baskets in good condition, we sure could use and will gladly pay for them--$1.00 for pecks and $1.50 for half bushels. Many thanks in advance for your help.
Please come see us real soon!
Dick Perdue
 RETAIL FARM MARKET HOURS
Wednesday thru Saturday, 10:00am til 5:30pm
Sunday, 12:30pm til 6:00pm
CLOSED MONDAY AND TUESDAY.
FARM ADDRESS FOR INTERNET DIRECTIONS AND MAP
2400 S.C. Hwy 11
Travelers Rest, S.C. 29690
See Map
Retail market phone: (864) 895-0608
View past newsletters, including the first newsletter of the season, and print out our fruit ripening charts online anytime at http://carolinafarmers.com/perdue/.
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