Beginning of Fall

Green hachiya persimmons

In the orchard some of the first persimmons are starting to develop an orange blush and begin to ripen.  The pomegranates are coloring up, too.  We started picking the winter squash in the gardens and although some of the pumpkins and gourds look ready to cut, the weather seems too hot still to try to harvest and store very many of them.

At the end of this month we'll post the 2011 hoshigaki (Japanese hand dried persimmon) mail order form so that we can begin taking orders for hoshigaki.  We'll post here on the blog when the official order form is finished and available on our website. 

New things we have at the fruit stand are jujube, quince, and olympic Asian pears.  We have limited quantities of jujube and quince though, since we only have a few of these trees and picking just started.

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

• Asian Pear--Yoi, Shinko, New Century, 20th Century, Olympic
  
•  Plums--Casselman, Angelina
  
• European Pear--Comice, D'anjou
• Apples--Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Northern Spy, Fuji
  
• Figs--Black Mission, Brown Turkey
• Quince
• Jujube
  
• Vegetables--tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplant, long beans, peppers, zucchini, summer squash,  basil, oregano, mint
• Honey--from bees at our orchard, star thistle honey from Lincoln
• Eggs

This summer, Girl Scouts from the local Granite Bay troop volunteered to  paint the fence around the horse pasture as part of a local sustainability project they were working on.  Earlier in the year they had visited the orchard for a tour and to talk with Tosh about local agriculture.  They were very enthusiastic and hard-working, and we're thankful that they could help us out.