Orchard News

We have been featured quite a few times in the news lately.  Gold Country media has photos and an article about our orchard and our efforts to donate to the Placer County Food Bank.  Last week we were featured on National Public Radio's California Report and KQED's Bay Area Bites.  These news stories have brought a lot of people out to the orchard in search of maru (chocolate) persimmons. Chris and Tosh are also on the cover of the farm magazine Minority Landowner in their 2012 Farmers of the Year issue. 

The show Huell Howser did about persimmons and making hoshigaki at Otow orchard for the PBS TV show California Gold will air Nov. 20th on the PBS stations KVIE/ Sacramento at 7:00 PM.  A few years ago, he and the show's crew came and spent part of a day interviewing and filming Helen, Chris and Tosh about drying persimmons.  Since then the show has aired a few times a year.

People are welcome to visit the orchard to see the persimmons drying.  Visitors can also go to our fruit stand and take walks in the orchard.  We're open Tues. through Sat.,  9-6 and Sun. from 10-5.  We're closed only on Mondays. If you want to visit the orchard for an organized group tour, please call ahead to schedule a time.  Other groups have already arranged times to come, and we want to be able to give everyone good attention.  Because we're a small farm with only a few workers, we need to know ahead of time to have enough staff available to help out.

If you're able to drive to our orchard, you can buy hoshigaki (Japanese hand-dried persimmons) at our fruit stand.  If you live too far away you can order hoshigaki through mail order.  Right now we're still accepting mail orders, but it's important to get orders in as soon as possible.  When we think this year's supply has been ordered, we'll need to stop accepting new orders and there will be a notice here on the orchard blog.