More rose quartz than ruby, the season’s first pomegranate jewels, quintessential desert fruit, spill onto my plate today, sweet and refreshing in spite of the summer’s brutal heat and really poor monsoons so far.
I don’t remember the name of this Punica granatum variety, but it seems to be one with light skin and arils though it is still early in the pomegranate harvest calendar. There is still time for the skin on the fruits to colour up and arils to darken.
Compared to last year, there are less fruit ripening on my three trees out front. A lot of very young fruit was knocked off by a severe hailstorm in late spring plus I pruned a bit in early spring before new leaf growth, removing some of the potentially fruit bearing branches for overall health of the young trees. That was the same storm which bruised the apricot harvest a week or so before peak harvest readiness.
The pomegranate trees were purchased from Animas Creek Nursery and planted early spring 2019. They have come a long way since: below shows the vision of a west front pomegranate hedge mulched with straw and just leafing out in early May 2020.
I was told three to five years before they would fruit so they are right on time. I just need to dig in my old garden diaries to see if I kept a record of the varieties.
It's a bit dubious as to whether I have a record. I was not yet inhabiting the Shala. Garden record keeping only really started in 2020.
I could also stop off at the nursery and ask them what they carried back there, then. It's a long shot but it's getting to be about time for some rock collecting trips again. They can often take me right past the nursery entrance.
Comments