So Many Fuyu

Right now there are so many fuyu persimmons at the fruit stand that we are having a sale.  If you buy two large bags, you get one large bag free.  Buy two small bags of fuyu, and get one small bag free. Fuyu persimmons are sweet when they're firm and have the texture of apple.

We still have other types of persimmons, such as hachiya, maru (chocolate), vodka-treated hyakume and early season hoshigaki (Japanese hand-dried persimmon).  Other fruit at the fruit stand include Asian pears, pomegranates and jujubes.

If you would like to pick up larger amounts of hoshigaki at the fruit stand, please call ahead and we will set it aside for you.  You can also order hoshigaki through mail order by sending us the order form (found under the "hoshigaki/persimmons" tab at the top of the site).

Persimmon Time

Persimmons on the Drying Racks  

We've been very busy at the orchard with persimmon harvest and all aspects of drying persimmons for hoshigaki (Japanese hand-dried persimmon).  Sorting, peeling, hanging, massaging, packing and shipping of persimmons is keeping all of us occupied.  Now is a good time to come and see the hoshigaki drying process.  Visitors are welcome to come to the orchard during the fruit stand's open hours to see the different stages of drying persimmons. Although we are not a "pick your own" operation, people are always welcome to just take a walk and tour the orchard on their own.    

We have lots of fuyu, hachiya and other fresh persimmons for sale at the fruit stand. Firm and sweet fuyus are available by the bag as well as trays of soft hachiya.  We also have maru and nagamaru (chocolate) persimmons, vodka-treated hyakume persimmons.  Other produce at the fruit stand includes Asian pears (shinko and okusankichi varieties), pomegranates (red, white and pink), apples (Granny Smith, Fuji), jujube, winter squash (kabocha, butternut), basil and other herbs. Persimmon cookbooks and the 2016 Placer County Master Gardeners calendar are also for sale.

Some of the first early season hoshigaki is also available in small quantities at the fruit stand.  If you'd like to pick up a larger quantity of hoshigaki it's best to call us and order ahead of time.  To have hoshigaki or fresh fruit delivered through mail order, print out our mail order form and send it to our address with a check.  

Hoshigaki Mail Orders

Freshly peeled hachiya persimmons drying for hoshigaki.

The new 2015 Hoshigaki Mail Order Form is now posted here on the website, under the Hoshigaki/Persimmons tab.  If you'd like to mail order hoshigaki (Japanese hand-dried persimmon) this year, please print out the mail order form and mail it back to us. You can also order fresh fruit shipments from our orchard using this form. This year our time frame for shipping fresh persimmons has been shortened because the fruit is ripening more quickly due to effects of the drought.

We started peeling the first hachiya persimmons to dry for hoshigaki about two weeks ago.  Peeling is the first step in the hoshigaki drying process.  The hachiyas need to be fully orange, but still hard enough to peel.  After peeling, each fruit takes around six weeks to dry, depending on the weather.  The peeled fruits are hung by their stems in pairs and massaged every few days to help them to dry evenly.  By the end of the drying process, each persimmon has developed a dusting of natural powdered sugar on its surface, and is soft and sweet.

Please keep in mind that because of these natural processes and weather variables, orders may take 8 to 10 weeks to ship.  The first hoshigaki for this season has not yet finished drying and we fill orders in the order in which we receive them.  It's important to get your order in as soon as possible, because supplies are limited to what we can dry while the weather allows.  When the persimmons are too soft to peel we must stop drying new ones. Also, this year our supply of persimmons is more limited because of the drought. 

Persimmons

We now have almost every variety of persimmon from the orchard at the fruit stand.  We have fuyu, hachiya, maru,  nagamaru and vodka-treated hyakume.  Fuyu is a non-astringent variety that is sweet when firm.  Hachiya is a variety that is astringent until it's as soft as jello, but then it's very sweet. 

Maru, nagamaru and hyakume are all pollination varient varieties, meaning that if the fruit was pollinated it will be brown and sweet inside when firm.  If the fruit wasn't pollinated, it will be only orange inside and to eat it you must wait for it to soften to become sweet.  The vodka that we treat the hyakume with takes away any astringency the fruit might have had, so vodka-treated hyakume is always sweet.

Also at the fruit stand we have Asian pears, apples (red delicious, golden delicious, fuji, reinette simerenko, granny smith), pomegranates (white and red), winter squash, tomatillos, sweet and hot peppers and honey.

Izu, Fuyu, Nagamaru, Nishimura Wase, Maru, Hyakume, Hachiya and Gyombo (back to front)

MOVING INTO FALL

     For us it has been very warm and challenging summer.  The drought continues to impact our growing practices with daily decisions and conversations about water use.  We have been busy cleaning up trees that did not survive the drought.  It is sad for me to see these trees gone since my father planted many of  them 40 or more years ago. They were trees with old wood and tasty fruit but because of their age were weak and decaying for many years.
        As much as we want to hang on to the summer fruits, the season is pushing us into fall. We are still harvesting late season peaches.  These are firm sweet tasty peaches.  Asian Pears and apples are filling our display tables as are peppers and winter squash.  A definite sign of fall is the appearance of early varieties of chocolate persimmons.  Fuyu and hachiya persimmons are starting to show some color on the trees.  Harvest will be sometime in October.

Here's what's at the farm stand now:
Peaches:  Summer Set, Late Alamar
Plums:  Casselman, Elephant Heart
Asian Pears:   Shinko, Yoi, Olympic, Yali
Apples:  Red Delicious, Golden Delicious (Otow Orchard)
               Mutsu, Fuji (Sunnyslope Farm)
Persimmons:  Coffee Cake, Maru, and Nagamaru (also called Tsurunoko or chocolate)
Quince
Jujube:  Li
Pomegranates:  white
Vegetables:  Sweet and hot peppers,  limited supply of okra, eggplant and basil
Winter Squash:   Kabocha, Butternut, Delicata
Bee Products:  honey, beeswax candles
Campfire wood

Fruit Stand Update

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

Peaches--Fay Elberta, O'Henry
Plums--Casselman, Kelsey, Elephant Heart, Eldorado, Friar
Figs--Black Mission, Brown Turkey, Kadota
Grapes--Thompson Seedless
Asian Pear--Hosui, Kosui, 20th Century

Tomatoes--Red tomatoes, heirloom, salad size, cherry, tomatillos

Vegetables--Zucchini, summer squash, cucumber,  eggplant,  sweet and hot peppers, okra

Herbs--Basil, oregano
Eggs--Local free-range chicken eggs, duck eggs to order
Bee products--honey, propolis, beeswax candles  (from bees at our orchard)

White Peaches and Vegetables

We now have white peaches at the fruit stand, and more vegetables as well.  Yellow peaches picked from the orchard are now the more flavorful mid-season varieties like Regina, Flavorcrest and Red Haven.  We also have red-fleshed plums like Satsuma and Frontier.

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

• Peaches--Yellow varieties (Flavor Crest, Regina, Red Haven, June Pride), white varieties (Sugar Lady, Nectar)
• Apricots--Blenheim, Patterson
• Plums--Santa Rosa, Frontier, Satsuma, Beauty 
• Pluots--Flavor Supreme
• Citrus Fruit--Pink Grapefruit, Valencia Oranges
• Vegetables--Zucchini and Summer Squash, green and yellow beans, Japanese eggplant, shishito peppers
• Herbs--Oregano, Mint, Rosemary, Lemon Balm
• Honey--from bees at our orchard, propolis also available
• Eggs--from local free range chickens (and ducks)
• Beeswax candles--handmade 100% beeswax

Lots of Fruit at the Fruit Stand

We now have lot of different kinds of fruit at the fruit stand.  Here's what we have:

• Peaches--Flavor Crest, June Crest, Regina, Bon Jour
• Apricots--Blenheim, Patterson
• Plums--Santa Rosa, Red Beaut
• Citrus Fruit--Pink Grapefruit, Valencia Oranges, Eureka Lemons
• Vegetables--Zucchini and Summer Squash
• Herbs--Oregano, Mint, Rosemary, Lemon Balm
• Honey--from bees at our orchard
• Eggs--from local free range chickens (and ducks)
• Beeswax candles--handmade 100% beeswax

If you're looking for plums for making jam, we have lots of hail-marked Santa Rosas that we're selling at a discount.  Call and let us know if  you'd like some set aside to pick up at the fruit stand.

Since the weather is warmer now hoshigaki mail orders have stopped until sometime in September.  We'll announce on the website when we begin again and post a new mail order form.

The fruit stand is open regular hours again.  We're open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 to 6:00, Sunday from 10:00-5:00 and closed on Monday. 

Water

Drip in the orchard (photo by Thomas Polchies)

Today was the first day we turned on the orchard irrigation system. We had put it off until as late as possible in an effort to save water.  In some areas of the orchard we reconfigured the irrigation by draping the mainline tubing through the lower branches of the trees and changing the micro sprinklers to the type of drip emitter in the photo.  In most areas we have the mainline tubing running on the ground along the rows of trees with one circular micro sprinkler placed between the trees. Last year we also changed some areas of the orchard's irrigation to two arc-shaped micro sprinklers between the trees that emitted less water together than one circular emitter.   We plan to monitor the differences in the trees' growth to try to figure out what works best. Last year we used almost 20% less water than the year before and we hope this year we are able to use even less water than last year.  

We started planting the vegetable gardens slowly over the past few weeks.  Now that we no longer have to carry water to the gardens and the weather is warmer we can plant the tomato, pepper and eggplant plant starts that we started from seed in February and March. At the fruit stand we now have yellow grapefruit, pink grapefruit, lemons, hoshigaki (Japanese hand-dried persimmons), locally made jam and eggs from local chickens.  

March and April Hours

 It has been a dry winter and we are already moving into spring.
 Our fruit stand hours for March and April are:
         Tu, Wed, Th  11:30 to 1:30  pm
         Fri, Sat, Sun   10:00 to 6:00 pm
                Closed on Mondays
We will return to our regular hours on May 1st.
 At the fruit stand we are now selling: navel oranges, blood oranges, grapefruit, hoshigaki, dehydrated fruit, beeswax candles, and jam  .
We planted peach, plum, jujube, ume, mulberry, persimmon, apple, and cherry trees.  It will be at least three years before they come into production.  The pruning is almost finished and we are working on tweaking our irrigation in hopes of  reducing our water use. 

The orchard is in bloom.  This is a great time to see the pink and white blossoms. By the end of March the blossoms will be replaced by tiny immature fruit vulnerable to freezing temperatures and hail storms. We just have to wait to see what summer brings.

Hoshigaki, Fuyu and Mandarin

Persimmon season is in full swing right now.  The fruit stand is full of fresh persimmons and all the drying racks are filled with sticks of persimmons in the process of drying.  We've been spending lots of time massaging the drying persimmons and deciding which ones are dry enough and ready to take off the racks.  In the packing room we have been packaging finished hoshigaki (Japanese hand-dried persimmons) to sell at the fruit stand and for mail orders.

We're still peeling persimmons to start new hoshigaki because the persimmons are still hard enough to peel.  Sometime in the next few weeks  we'll need to stop peeling because the persimmons will either be mostly too ripe to dry well or the weather will be too cool or damp for them to dry well. Right now we're still taking orders for pick up at the fruit stand or mail order. If you'd like to pick up more than a pound of hoshigaki at out fruit stand, it's a good idea to call ahead.  If you live within driving distance picking up an order at the fruit stand may be worthwhile economically.

At the fruit stand we have lots of hard fuyu persimmons still.  We have fuyus for sale by the pound or by the bag.  Fuyus are sweet and ready to eat when they're hard.  We also have hachiya and gyombo persimmons,  which must be very soft to be sweet.  Other persimmons we have are maru (or chocolate persimmon) and hyakume (or cinnamon persimmon).  Maru and hyakume are pollination variant type persimmons, which means they're sweet and ready to eat hard if they're pollinated.  We also have vodka-treated hyakume, which is always sweet and ready to eat when hard, because of the vodka treatment.  We also have owari satsuma mandarins, Granny Smith apples, red pomegranate, kabocha winter squash, honey from bees at the orchard, and two different persimmon cookbooks for sale at the fruit stand. 

Hoshigaki and Hachiya persimmons

Hachiya persimmons by the wind machine

We've been busy peeling hachiyas to dry for hoshigaki (Japanese hand-dried persimmons) since last week.  Each hachiya persimmon is peeled by hand and then a string is looped around its stem.  The peeled hachiyas  hang in pairs on specially made sticks that fit into our hoshigaki drying racks.  They start drying outside in the sun and wind, then later on we move them to one of the inside drying rooms.

Hachiyas are a variety of persimmon that is astringent when eaten hard.  To eat a hachiya fresh, you need to wait until it's soft like jello with translucent skin.  If you like soft and sweet fruit this texture, you can just eat the hachiya with a spoon fresh.  Soft hachiyas are also the type of persimmon used in making persimmon bread and cookies.  The pulp is added to baked goods in the same way you would use soft bananas in banana bread.

The hard hachiyas we peel to make hoshigaki are astringent at first, but as the peeled fruits dry they ripen and sweeten.  Moisture from the inside comes to the surface and leaves a dusting of white fructose.  The end result is a whole dried fruit with the texture of a date inside and a coating of its own powdered sugar on the outside.   

We are still taking mail orders for hoshigaki.  You can also contact us and arrange to pick up your order at the fruit stand if you live within driving distance.