🌸 Nonpareil Almond

What it looks like

Why this variety

Nonpareil is the almond by which other almonds are judged, and for good reason: it is the leading commercial almond in California, with thin, papery shells, sweet kernels, and heavy, reliable crops in the right climate. If you have ever eaten an almond from a bag, odds are good it was a Nonpareil or one of its close relatives. It is the standard because it earns it, year after year, in orchards that can give it what it wants.

What it wants is the catch. Nonpareil needs a real winter and a pollinizer — it is not self-fertile, so it needs a compatible almond blooming alongside it — and it wants the dry summers of its Mediterranean ancestry. It is included here as the benchmark variety, the one to compare every other almond against, not as a casual Florida pick.

Thin-shelled, sweet kernels; heavy crops in the right climate. Needs a compatible pollinizer almond blooming at the same time — plant it with a partner or expect a handsome, nutless tree.

How to grow

Plant bare-root while dormant and prune to an open vase. Because Nonpareil blooms early, site it where cold air drains away rather than pooling — a late frost on open bloom ends the crop before it starts, which is the same trap that catches apricots.

Plant grafted trees while dormant in late winter or early spring, in full sun and deep, well-drained soil. Stone fruit drowns in wet feet faster than almost any other fruit group, so drainage is the whole game: raised ground beats a hollow every time. Prune to an open vase in the first few years so light and air reach the interior wood where fruit forms, and keep the graft union above soil level.

Florida framing, stated plainly: Nonpareil is a North Florida trial variety only, and an optimistic one. Florida winters are usually too mild and too erratic for its chilling needs, and humid summers invite the fungal problems almonds escape in dry climates. If you trial it, do so in North Florida, on high, well-drained ground, with a pollinizer, and with the understanding that a leafy, blooming tree that never crops is a normal outcome, not a gardening failure. Do not plant it in Central or South Florida expecting nuts.

Water & feeding

Water young trees deeply through their first two growing seasons, then water consistently through fruit development — uneven watering makes fruit split and drop. A thick mulch ring (kept off the trunk) holds moisture and suppresses weeds, and worm castings worked into the planting hole and as a spring top-dress feed the soil biology that stone fruit rewards. Skip heavy nitrogen after fruit set: it buys leaves at the expense of fruit.

Common problems

• Brown rot — the classic stone-fruit fungus, worst in warm, humid weather. It rots blossoms and fruit and overwinters in mummified fruit left on tree or ground. Sanitation (remove mummies, fallen fruit, and diseased wood) matters more than any spray.
• Bacterial canker and black knot — swollen, black growths on branches. Prune well below the swelling in dry weather and dispose of cuttings off-site; do not compost them.
• Late frost on open bloom — one hard freeze after a warm spell ends the crop. Site trees where cold air drains away, not in frost pockets, and accept that some springs will simply be lost.
• Birds and squirrels — they know ripeness a day before you do. Net before fruit colors fully if you want to taste the crop.
• Peach tree borer and other borers — sawdust-like frass at the trunk base is the sign. Keep trunks healthy, avoid mower wounds, and remove infested wood.

Harvest

Pick when fruit colors fully, yields very slightly to pressure, and smells fragrant — stone fruit picked hard never develops full flavor, and fruit picked soft bruises in the basket. Taste one before harvesting the whole tree. Use fresh within days, or preserve promptly: jam, drying, freezing, and baking all suit stone fruit, and a glut handled the same week beats a glut left to rot on the tree.

Saving seeds

Nonpareil is the almond by which other almonds are judged, and for good reason: it is the leading commercial almond in California, with thin, papery shells, sweet kernels, and heavy, reliable crops in the right climate. If you have ever eaten an almond from a bag, odds are good it was a Nonpareil or one of its close relatives. As a named almond variety it is kept true by grafting, not by seed: plant grafted trees while dormant in late winter or early spring, in full sun and deep, well-drained soil, and prune to an open vase in the first few years. Nonpareil needs a real winter and a pollinizer — it is not self-fertile, so it needs a compatible almond blooming alongside it. The full method is in the Saving seeds section of the Almond guide.