Monday, June 28, 2010

Peaches & Santa Rosa Plums


We now have a lot of peaches at the fruit stand, as well as Santa Rosa plumsSanta Rosa plums are very fragrant and flavorful, with both sweetness and tangy-nessCherries and loquat are finished, and there will be no more plants from Peas and Harmony until it's time for planting Fall vegetables.  A lot more varieties of peaches and plums should be coming up soon.  To see our harvest calender, click here. Because of this spring and early summer's cooler weather, what we actually have harvested so far has been about a week behind what we typically expect for the time of year. 

Here's what's at the fruit stand now:

  • Plums--Santa Rosa, black beaut, red beaut, beauty
  • Peaches--Bon Jour,  June crest, Regina (all are yellow free-stone varieties)
  • Apricots--Patterson, Royal Blenheim
  • Vegetables--zucchini, summer squash, eggplant, Swiss chard, garlic and herbs (basil, rosemary, oregano)
  • Honey--(raw, from bees living at our orchard)
  • Eggs 

Monday, June 21, 2010

New Fruits and Vegetables at the Fruit Stand


A few new things ready at the orchard.  Apricots and the early summer peaches are ready, as well as zucchini, Swiss chard, garlic and basil.  Above is a photo of yellow zucchini growing in the garden.

If you have space left in your garden, we still have a few plants from Peas and Harmony for sale at the fruit stand. There are pepper plants, winter and summer squash plants, eggplant and herb seedlings.

For father's day Chris made a peach and berry cobbler from Joanne Neft and Laura Kenny's Placer County Real Food Cookbook that was really good.  The recipe called for olallieberries, but since we don't have those at the orchard she used raspberries, mulberries and peaches.  

Here's what we have now at the fruit stand:

  • Plums--Red beaut, beauty
  • Peaches--May Crest, June Crest
  • Apricots--Patterson
  • Cherries--Bing
  • Loquat (biwa)
  • Vegetables--zucchini, Swiss chard, garlic and herbs (basil, rosemary, oregano)
  • Honey--(raw, from bees living at our orchard)
  • Organic vegetable seedlings--from Peas and Harmony

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Early Summer work at the Orchard


In the orchard we have been thinning persimmons from the trees, weed-eating around the sprinklers and checking and repairing the irrigation.  In the vegetable gardens we just finished planting the last winter squash by seed.  Most of the zucchini and summer squash plants are starting to produce.  The tomatoes are all green still, and they do seem like they'll be ready later than usual. 

We pulled up the last of the garlic from the wire-lined beds and then planted the beds  with specialty pumpkins (such as cinderella and white pumpkins). There's just enough time after the garlic is pulled out in early June to put in pumpkins that will ripen by the beginning of October.  The beds are wire-lined to keep out gophers, since garlic is one of gophers' favorite things to eat.  They also like to eat roots of pumpkin plants and chew on the pumpkins themselves.

To keep gophers out, we make a raised bed with hardware cloth on the bottom and aviary wire on the sides.   Though it's a lot of work to make beds like this, it's worth it for certain crops, since gophers are unable to chew through the wire to whatever is planted there.  Toshio has also been setting lots of gopher traps around the orchard to try to get rid of gophers in the other parts of the vegetable gardens.  In the photo above is Toshio with a few gophers that he caught in traps.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Tosh and the Orchard on Good Day Sacramento


Tomorrow the morning TV show "Good Day Sacramento" is coming to the orchard.  They're supposed to be filming scenes live from the orchard from 7:00 to 8:00 AM off and on, and spend a few minutes talking with Tosh.  The show is on channel 31 locally.   Click here for a link to their show.  From the web page you can watch it live on line, or watch the show later on.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Loquat


We just picked loquat (biwa) and Royal Ann cherries over the past few days.  We also have the first red beaut plums.  Red beaut plums have red skin and yellow interiors, and are the first variety that we grow to ripen for the year.  We expect to have apricots by next week.  Because of the cold weather this spring, all of these fruits are a week or so later getting ripe than usual.  

Last weekend, for the second time I had to replant about two rows of tomato plants in the garden because they had frozen in a frost the week before.  It was really helpful that Julie and Alison from Peas and Harmony had big tomato plants they could give me so that I could replant both times. Otherwise I would have had only about a row of plants alive to produce tomatoes for the fruit stand. Now I can concentrate on getting the winter squash planted in the rows that are left in the garden. 

In the orchard now the olive and persimmon trees have just finished blooming.  The pomegranate trees are still blossoming.  Pomegranate trees have very distinctive reddish orange flowers, as you can see in the photo above.    
 
Here's what's at the fruit stand now:

Plums-Red beaut
Cherries-Royal Ann
Loquat (biwa)
Oranges-Valencia
Grapefruit-white variety (last ones)
Organic Plants from Peas and Harmony-tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, winter squash, basil and other herbs 
Honey--from our bees
Eggs--from our chickens

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