Come Take a Walk

Come take a walk in the orchard and see all the blossoming trees. The plum and peach trees are all in full bloom. The persimmon, Asian pear, apple, and cherry trees are budding and about to leaf out or bloom.

We have been busy preparing garden beds for planting, planting new trees and pruning, and trying to finish putting in the new irrigation system.

Above is Viviano standing in a peach tree.

Gardening Classes

Peas and Harmony is an all-organic nursery and design center that has a demonstration garden at the orchard. People are welcome to visit the garden, and they sell organic plants at the fruit stand.

Peas and Harmony is having a series of gardening classes take place at the orchard. Here's what they're doing in March:

"Jump Start the Growing Season"--Saturday, March 28th, 9:30-12 PM

"The Dirt on Soil & Seeds"--Saturday, March 28th, 1PM-3:30 PM

For more information, and to register, go to their website at www.peasandharmony.net .

Orchard in Bloom

Most of the trees in the orchard are now in bloom. It's a nice time to come take a walk, if you can find a break in the rain. This coming weekend is supposed to be sunny.

In the photo above you can see peach trees with pink blossoms and plum trees with white.

What's at the Fruit Stand Now?

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

• Grapefruit
• Oranges--Valencia, Nodahara's Navel variety (very large)
  
• Lemons--Meyer, Eureka
  
• Kiwi
• Honey--From bees at our orchard
  
• Gourds--for decorations and crafting

Some organic plant seedlings are for sale at the fruit stand from Peas and Harmony, also. See their website for more details (www.peasandharmony.net).

Here's a link to a recent story about Meyer Lemons from National Public Radio. It includes a bit of history about the fruit and some good recipes.

Above is a photo of one of the grapefruit trees at the orchard.

What's Happening at the Orchard

We've been doing a lot of winter time work at the orchard lately. We've been busy pruning trees, raking up the brush, cutting down old trees and planting new ones. We're also getting the vegetable gardens ready for spring planting by making new garden beds and figuring out garden designs and varieties to plant.

Finishing the new irrigation system by putting in the pipes, hoses and sprinklers is another task we're trying to finish before we get busier with other work in the spring.

A lot of the trees are budding and are nearly ready to blossom. At the end of February and beginning of March the orchard will be transformed by the flowering trees. It's a good time to come visit and take a walk, if you can.

What's at the Fruitstand?

Hoshigaki (massage-dried persimmon) is no longer for sale at the fruit stand. This coming Fall we'll start taking orders for hoshigaki again. Look here on the website in late September or early October for a post announcing that orders have begun. Mark your calender in late September to remind yourself to make an order.

Late last week we picked some of our grapefruit and now have it for sale. Grapefruit will be the last fruit picked until we harvest the biwa (loquat) tree. The first biwa blossoms just started to bloom this past weekend. After biwa we expect cherries, apricots and the first plums sometime in May.

What's at the fruit stand now?

• Grapefruit--new this past week
• Oranges--Nodahara's Navel variety (very large)
  
• Lemons--Meyer, Eureka
  
• Kiwi
• Fresh Persimmons--Hachiya , gyombo (soft)
  
• Vegetables--Jerusalem artichoke
  
• Gourds--for decorations and crafting

Above is a photo of blossoms on the pink-blossomed ume tree at the orchard.

Ume Blossoms

If you are out at the Orchard in the next couple of days, ask to smell the Ume tree. This Japanese Plum is always the first tree to bloom in the spring and is quickly discovered by bees. If you go up to the tree and smell its blossoms you can just imagine how enticing its gentle sweetness must be to bees emerging from a winter of short rations.

Bees, the Orchard & What's in the Fruit Stand

We heard from Anatoli, (one of the people who keep bees at the orchard) that when he went to check his hives last week he found over half the bees dead. He isn't sure what happened, but thought that it was very strange that so many of them would suddenly die.

In the photo above you can see how the orchard looks right now. The lack of leaves and blossoms makes it possible to see almost from one end of the orchard to the other. In the foreground of the photo are a few bee hives that are tended to by Hoshan, another bee keeper. The bee hives found with so many dead bees are at the end of the orchard by the pond and eucalyptus grove.

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

• Fresh Persimmons--Hachiya , gyombo (soft)
  
• Dried Persimmons (Hoshigaki)--strips only
  
• Oranges--Nodahara's Navel variety, (very large)
  
• Lemons--Meyer, Eureka
  
• Kiwi
  
• Vegetables--Jerusalem artichoke
  
• Gourds--for decorations and crafting

What's at the Fruit Stand

At the fruit stand we now have:

• Fresh Persimmons--Hachiya , gyombo and Fuyu, (all soft)
• Dried Persimmons (Hoshigaki)--strips only
  
• Oranges--Nodahara's Navel variety, (very large)
  
• Lemons--Meyer
  
• Apples--Koyama's Granny Smith
• Kiwi
  
• Vegetables--Jerusalem artichoke
  
• Gourds--for decorations and crafting
• Honey--from bees at our orchard

Above is a photo with a view from the end of the trees at the orchard, showing the new irrigation lines that we are in the process of installing.

Chickens in the Orchard & Garden

At the orchard we have chickens that live in a movable dome that Toshio built. The dome is about 12 3/4 feet in diameter and made of PVC pipe and chicken wire. The roost is a lashed bamboo grid suspended from the top of the dome. The design comes from the book, "The Permaculture Home Garden", by Linda Woodrow.

We move the chicken dome every two weeks to a new spot. The floor is open, without wire, so the chickens help out the orchard by eating weeds, insects, and surplus fruit and vegetables, and by fertilizing the ground. Right now the chicken dome is in my garden, where the chickens are eating up weeds and insects and fertilizing the soil for the spring.

Last year I had the chickens stationed in the area that I later used to plant tomatoes. They left the soil loose and free of everything but the biggest weeds, and I didn't need to have the area tilled. After we moved the dome to the next spot I put down hay as mulch to keep down weeds until it was time to plant. I made beds by just pulling back the hay and hoeing in compost. Last year's tomatoes seemed to grow really well, so I hope to have time to station the dome in the areas for tomatoes, summer squash and cucumbers. The chickens need to be out of the area 120 days before ground crop harvest and 90 days before the harvest of vine crops.

We started out with 13 chickens, but now we have only 9, including the rooster. If we want to have more eggs to eat and sell, we'll have to buy a few more chickens that are younger. Ours are now about 4 years old and don't lay eggs very frequently.

What's at the Fruit Stand?

If you come to the fruit stand, you'll find:

• Fresh Persimmons--Hachiya , gyombo and Fuyu, (all soft)
• Kiwi
• Lemons--Meyer (picked this week for the first time this week)
  
• Apples--Koyama's Granny Smith
• Mandarins--satsuma (only a small supply left)
  
• Quince--the last of the season
  
• Vegetables--Jerusalem artichoke
  
• Gourds--for decorations and crafting
• Honey--from bees at our orchard
  

Above is a photo of a persimmon tree at the orchard.

Rafu Shimpo Article Correction

We wanted to correct a bit of misinformation that some of you may have read in the Rafu Shimpo, a Japanese language newspaper based in Los Angeles. In a Dec. 9th article sent to us recently, columnist George Yoshinaga wrote about hoshigaki and Otow Orchard. While we appreciate that Mr. Yoshinaga took the time to write about hoshigaki production at our orchard, we want to make sure that he and his readers have the right information. We wrote an email to him personally, but thought it would be a good idea to also post some corrections here.

Although Mr. Yoshinaga's point was to stress the amount of time and effort required to dry persimmons, some of his information was not accurate. We actually devote about 4 months a year to the process (rather than 6 weeks), since drying takes between 4 and 8 weeks from beginning to end.

Mr. Yoshinaga wrote in his column, "I was not aware that it took a lot of delicate work to produce dried persimmons. First, there is the hand-peeling, followed by hand-massaging the fruit over five days to bring the natural sugar to the surface". Actually, depending on the weather and the ripeness of the fruit, persimmons take a minumum of 4 weeks to dry with hand-massaging every 3-4 days. After peeling and hanging, the massaging that they get every few days does help to bring the persimmon's natural sugar to the surface, but the first sugar crystals are not usually visible for a few weeks. At the end of the drying process, some of the persimmon's natural sugar crystals have become a dusting of powdery fructose on its surface.

Towards the end of the season, when the persimmons are riper and the weather is more damp and cool, the drying process can take 8 weeks. This year we have found that most of the hoshigaki that we began drying from November on has taken close to 8 weeks to finish. All of this accounts for the reason we have to charge upwards of $35 to $40 a pound for hoshigaki, instead of the $12-$25 price that was mentioned in the article.

Above is a photo of Obaachan (Helen Otow) this Fall, massaging persimmons where they first hang outside on the wall in the sun.