so..that was a week ago
HOW WAS IT???/

Dottie - Twice now I've written really LONG responses to this thread only to get a message from GW saying their server was overloaded and to try back later. So, keeping things short- it was wonderful. I will try to go up there every other year if not every year.

The Heritage Harvest Festival is like nothing I have ever seen before. On the surface it looks like a large craft fair on the grounds of Monticello, but when you walk through the hundreds of booths you see that just about all of them are somehow gardening related. There might be a booth about bee keeping, staffed by the local bee keepers association. Next to it would be a booth selling bee keeping supplies and equipment. Next to that would be a booth selling honey and next to that might be a booth selling mead or honey wine. There were booths about mushrooms, herbs, chickens, cheese, soap...etc. And a lot of tent space devoted to heirloom veggies, most with a taste test showing the different types of whatever veggie.

Down the highway about an hour is Edible Landscaping Nursery in Afton. On the same day as the Heritage fest he had his first Orchard Tour/fruit festival where he led you around the place and picked whatever fruit was ripe and let you taste it. He grows just about the strangest fruit you can grow outside in VA. I have ordered from him before and driven up there before but this was the first time he had it all organized and EVERYTHING WAS ON SALE!!! I came home with a full vehicle.

That sounds great John. What kinds of 'strangest fruit' did you sample?

He had hardy kiwi at peak flavor - maybe 5 different varieties. They all tasted better than I ever remember them being (I must be harvesting too early).

He had some new cultivars of Asian pear. He was letting us taste them in comparison to well known varieties. Most of us liked the new one best (he loves the old one). I don't remember the name, but the new one won't be available for a few years.

He had some new hybrid persimmons - half Asian and have American. They tasted like wild persimmons to me but the fruit was half way between Asian and American in size.

Cornelian Cherry - Cornus mas - most of his had been harvested in August this year. They are small tear drop shaped berries from a European dogwood. Taste like Bing Cherries.

He had strawberries that fruit anytime the nights are cool and the days are warm. His chickens eat them so we couldn't find a ripe one but I bought some anyway, just on the chance I might get a fall crop.

He had ripe pomegranites but I didn't taste any - my mouth was full of kiwi at the time.

His Che fruit was loaded with ripe berries. Whenever I had tried them in the past (on a farm down near Mt Olive NC) they just tasted like mildly fruity mush. His tasted like fig mixed with really ripe cantaloupe, which explains why the Chinese call them 'Melon berry'. I already have a tree but it will be years before I see a berry.

John, you planted pawpaws at the new place didn't you?

Despite having a back forest full of them, I've never tasted the fruit. The wild critters seem to get them off the trees before any ripen enough to fall.
What do they taste like?

I grew the wild ones in Oklahoma and never got to the fruit before the squirrels. They tend to bite a big chunk out and leave the rest to rot.

At the old house I planted three named cultivars (I forget which ones) and they were just getting large enough to fruit when I sold and moved.

At the new house I planted four that are seedlings from extra tasty fruit (sold to me by Niche Gardens, but the fruit came from some research orchard nearby). The parents are all named cultivars but the seedlings are mixes and un-named. They are all doing great and one of them may bloom this next spring. It will be a few more years before I can get reliable fruit.

The ripe fruit is soft like a ripe banana. I've tasted some that tasted like some sort of mild tropical custard or like a bar of soap (wild ones). They aren't my favorite, I tend to like crunchy fruit, but they fruit in the shade and I've got one narrow strip of shade that needed something. Friends have told me that they tasted one at the big Paw Paw Festival that really tasted like a Mango.

Thanks for the great description of what I'm missing (taste-wise) in PawPaw. Since mine were wild, perhaps
I'm not missing anything if it tastes like soap,LOL.