I haven’t had much time to post lately, but my nectarines started coming ripe within the past week. I still have a bunch on the tree, and some are getting a little overdone, because I haven’t had time to pick them. But I’m going to pick them all tonight, unless there are still some green ones. I already picked two bowls of them and gave most away to friends.
I’ll be making a nectarine cobbler this Saturday for a BBQ party we’re hosting. Mmmmm… Sounds so good!
I did find a small worm in one of the ones I ate. I hope there aren’t many others. I haven’t been spraying these since probably a month ago, since I wanted to be sure they didn’t have a lot of malathion on them when we picked them and since I’ve heard that they don’t get too many pests.
Well, they turned out pretty good. I think I should have left a few more hard ones on the tree for a few days, but most of them ripened up well on the kitchen counter. Only about four had some worms as far as I could tell. And each of those only had one tiny worm. I sliced up 18 of them for a cobbler and sliced the rest up and froze them. I have two 1-gallon ziploc bags full of them in the freezer now.
I picked all the nectarines this evening, and it’s a mixture of ripeness. Some will need to sit on the counter for several days and ripen up, many were just right, and some were overdone. The birds have pecked at some of them, too. I found some with insect damage and left them on the ground for the birds, but it wasn’t too many. I think it was good to pick them all now so the birds didn’t get too many, but I hope the ones that aren’t fully ripe will still be sweet enough when they soften up.