Several small fruits are starting the summer season. We have mulberries, loquat, cherries and ume. Cherry crop is light and the mulberries are past their peak. But we will have some for a while.
That very sour Japanese plum that is more accurately an apricot is now in season. We have a small but respectable crop of ume. Sunnyslope farm and Pleasant Hill farm have added to our supply. The most popular ways of preparing ume is with salt to make umeboshi or with shochu, a strong Japanese alcohol, to make umeshu often called "plum wine". I have heard that people prepare ume in honey or sugar to extract its unique floral flavor.
We will also have loquat for the next couple of weeks. These are small fruit with sweet flesh between its large seeds and fuzzy skin.
Our earliest peach and apricot have come and gone. A few lucky customers got them. Now we are checking the Springcrest and Maycrest peaches.
Red Beaut plum are almost non existent this year. Plum season may not start till Santa Rosas are ready sometime around the end of June.
In the next 3 months, if the weather cooperates we hope to have a good variety of fruit. Don't miss out on peaches, plums, apricots, Asian pears, European pears, grapes, pluots and figs. These products are on the trees now but are still very green and immature.
Vegetables will be changing from winter to summer. BarleyOats winter vegetables are finding it too warm to produce very much. We may not get tomatoes and cucumbers till July but it looks like zucchini are starting to produce. Other summer vegetables like peppers, eggplant and okra are also taking their time.
In the orchard we are still trying to keep up with the weeds. Thinning of apples and pears is in progress as well as the beginning of the fruit harvest.
Now that we have more to offer than citrus our hours are back to normal.
Here's what we have in the farm stand from Otow Orchard:
Rainier cherries (limited supply)
Loquat
Yellow peaches: Maycrest, Springcrest (both in limited supply)
Hoshigaki, hand dried persimmons
Eureka Lemons
Marsh white grapefruit (yellow flesh)
Valencia oranges
Pakistani Mulberries (limited supply)
Zucchini (limited supply)
Calendula Salve and Lip Balm
Herbs: mint, rosemary, oregano
Honey from our orchard
This is what we have from other producers:
Ume from Sunnyslope Farm
Jams from The Good Stuff
Winter vegetables from BarlyOats Farm (limited supply)
Bee pollen from Top O' The Hill Apiary
Eggs from Two Feather Farm
No comments:
Post a Comment