Stark Sweetheart is a pretty good apricot. Not adapted here because its chill requirement is too high, so I've only gotten a few fruits. The shell is as hard as a regular apricot pit. The nuts taste a lot like almonds. Not quite up to the standards of the typical commercial almond, maybe a little firmer. Different shape.

When I was a child, our family had a Chinese apricot. It is also a sweet pit variety. We cracked the seeds in a vise and enjoyed the nuts. Fruit is a little soft, but flavor is sweet and quite intense when fully ripe. Montrose is another late-blooming sweet pit variety. Ripens a few weeks later than Chinese, I think.

Someday, I hope to get a Robada, a sweet pit variety more suited to our climate.

This post was edited by carolync1 on Tue, Aug 6, 13 at 2:35

Can't speak from experience, but I've heard that squirrels are crazy about them.

I planted a Robada this spring, I did not know it was a sweet pit, where did you find that info. Bonus for me I guess as I had not seen it marketed as such.

I have Hunza..have never even tried the pit..i should go grab one and see...still a couple out there.

Don't know how fast everyone has their apricots bear, but I planted one in 2004 and this is the first year it produced fruit for me, was worth the wait, was like 3000 fruit in it, been going on for couple weeks.

This post was edited by lkz5ia on Tue, Aug 6, 13 at 0:11

Robada's patent identifies it as a sweet pit variety, Strudeldog. "no amygdalin detectable by taste".

lkz5ia

Your sweetmeat apricot and nut look great. How does the nut taste compare to a store bought almond? I read somewhere that the Hunza store their apricot pits intact until they need to prepare some for eating. And they roast them rather than eat them raw.

How does the apricot flesh compare in eating quality?

Haven't tried almond and the apricot kernel side by side to get a good idea of the difference, but I would think almonds would have some advantage to be better, otherwise nobody would be growing them if apricot could produce a nut that is just as good.

Apricot itself was good, but can't really give good opinion on that either since before eating this one, all I had ate in the past was the manchurian bush apricots and some of those are spitters.

If almonds are important to you, in zone 6, you can grow them. I had some young almonds growing and they did fine with -15F, but flaked out when it hit the -20s. Wasted a lot of money on those and jujubes.