Our Hoshigaki Special has ended. Thank you to new and old customers for helping us adjust our supply. We are now in a good place to have a moderate supply of hoshigaki for the next 5 months till the 2025 season for drying persimmons begins.
Hoshigaki is available at the farm stand and through mail order.
For
mail orders please use our 2024 mail order form.
When I was growing up on this farm, my parents were farmers. They needed to grow the most and the best looking crop they could so it would produce big pieces of fruit and beautiful unblemished fruit that would be marketable. My parents could not just grow fruit on a whim. They had to care for the trees so the crop would be salable. But in the process trees showed signs of disease and fruit attracted pests. So the advice at that time was to find an additive, usually a chemical, that would get rid of the disease or pest. Loosely defined, this is conventional agriculture. Trees need nitrogen, then add nitrogen fertilizers to the soil. Trees get a virus, then spray them with a chemical to kill the virus. Years later, people became aware that adding chemicals was not the best thing for the soil, or for people. Government put in place numerous regulations to determine how much and which chemicals are safe to be used. The industry has since looked for other ways of controlling diseases and pests, and for ways to build the soil and keep people healthy. Today we see organic, sustainable, regenerative, climate-smart, and combinations of agricultural practices.
So what practices are used at Otow Orchard. It's been almost 20 years since we transitioned from spraying pesticides to giving up all sprays on this farm. We are sometimes tempted to apply organically accepted sprays. There are many organically approved sprays currently in use. These include bacteria or viruses that disrupt the targeted pest or disease and not effect humans or the environment. Some sprays are natural clays that surround produce to protect it from pests, disease, smoke or sunburn. At this point we have not used any of these. We like to say that our practices are "No Spray" agriculture.
How do we deal with pests and diseases? Thankfully, many of our customers are tolerant of scarred, misshaped and under-sized fruit. I will add that we do use mating disruption lures to control worms. Many of our customers were put off when told that fruit might contain worms. Luckily there is an organic practice of using mating disruption lures that has worked very well on our orchard for the past 14 years. The lure we hang in the tree attracts the male moth. He thinks he can smell a female moth but cannot find her. This results in fewer matings and fewer eggs to be laid and therefore fewer worms to be hatched. We also have a small army of good bugs feasting on bad bugs in our orchard. We also discovered that keeping diseased fruit off the orchard floor decreased the presence of disease.
For another few weeks citrus will dominate our offerings at the farm stand. Then gradually we will start to get loquat, peaches and apricots then plums.
We are still on modified hours. When harvest begins we will revert to our full time hours.
Closed Sundays and Mondays.
Open Tues,Wed and Thurs only two hours 11:30 to 1:30
Open Fri and Sat: 10 am to 6 pm
Here is what we have at the Farm Stand from Otow Orchard.
Hachiya Pulp: Frozen
Hachiya persimmon pulp is available. Often used to make cookies,
puddings and breads. Many customers put it on yogurt and oatmeal or
add it to their smoothie.
Eureka Lemons: These are very tart lemons. Great for contrast in sweet and sour recipes like: lemonade, lemon meringue pie, sweet and sour pork, and lemon bars.
Yellow grapefruit: Sweet tart grapefruit with yellow flesh. This variety has great flavor.
Local Honey Honey 🍯 from bees 🐝 at Otow Orchard. Bee pollen from bees 🐝 at Otow Orchard is also available.
⚘ Calendula Salve and Lip Balm: Wonderfully thick salve for healing dry skin, bug bites and scrapes.
Peach trees: We have a few peach trees for planting. Regina peaches are a yellow freestone peach that is harvested around the end of June.
Pakistani Mulberries: Long dark mulberries. Very sweet. Available only to those on the request list. Call to get on the list.
Ume: Japanese sour plums (apricot). Limited supply. Available only to those on the request list. Call (916) 791-1656 or email otoworchard@yahoo.com to get on the list. This year's crop was damaged by multiple hail storms in March. As the fruit grew, so did the scaring. All fruit is damaged. Some customers will still process with salt, sweetener or alcohol even with the scars. They are just looking for the unique flavor and fragrance of ume.
Here is what we have from other producers:
Arrow Place in Auburn, no spray practices:
Meyer
Lemons: These lemons have dark yellow skin and are less acidic than
regular lemons. Known for their flavor and fragrance. Skin is thin and
is often used for its fragrant zest.
Stoney Point Orchard, Loomis, CA organic certified:
Rio Red Grapefruit: Juicy and sweet with a bit of tartness. Flesh is pink.
La Bella Vito Farm in Loomis is bringing us fresh🥚 eggs from pastured 🐔🐔chickens. Limited supply.
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| No tomatoes yet. |
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| Pomegranate blossom |
How to begin. Not much yet so much. The farm stand has only a few offerings, grapefruit, lemons and hoshigaki. Yet we are busy everyday preparing for the next harvest. Mow the weeds, repair machinery, plant trees, water trees, repair irrigation, inventory trees in the ground and those removed, prepare the ground for vegetables, dig out bindweed and more bindweed, make beds for tomatoes, water plant starts, plant tomatoes, white wash the newly planted tender trees, thin off unwanted green peach, plum, apricot and pluots, harvest grapefruit and lemons...
Every year is different.
This year we need help depleting our supply of hoshigaki. We are offering one free pound of unsorted hoshigaki for every 4 pounds of unsorted hoshigaki you purchase at the farm stand (B4G1). We had a long hoshigaki season in 2024 and kept peeling and drying longer than in most years. For the mail order special offer, please send email to: otoworchard@yahoo.com
The trees are now leafed out and we can see small immature fruit hanging on the trees. We will spend many hours going over each tree, each branch and each twig to remove damaged, small, misshapen, crowded fruit. We do this by human hand and always miss a few.
Now is the time for citrus lovers. We have juicy pink and yellow grapefruit. We have Meyer lemons and the sour Eureka lemons. A few Valencia, juicing oranges, are starting to come in.
Closed Sundays and Mondays.
Open Tues,Wed and Thurs only two hours 11:30 to 1:30
Open Fri and Sat: 10 am to 6 pm
Here is what we have at the Farm Stand from Otow Orchard.
Hachiya Pulp: Frozen
Hachiya persimmon pulp is available. Often used to make cookies,
puddings and breads. Many customers put it on yogurt and oatmeal or
add it to their smoothie.
Eureka Lemons: These are very tart lemons. Great for contrast in sweet and sour recipes like: lemonade, lemon meringue pie, sweet and sour pork, and lemon bars.
Yellow grapefruit: Sweet tart grapefruit with yellow flesh. This variety has great flavor.
Local Honey Honey 🍯 from bees 🐝 at Otow Orchard. Bee pollen from bees 🐝 at Otow Orchard is also available.
⚘ Calendula Salve and Lip Balm: Wonderfully thick salve for healing dry skin, bug bites and scrapes.
Peach trees: We have a few peach trees for planting. Regina peaches are a yellow freestone peach that is harvested around the end of June.
Here is what we have from other producers:
Arrow Place in Auburn, no spray practices:
Meyer
Lemons: These lemons have dark yellow skin and are less acidic than regular lemons. Known for their flavor and fragrance. Skin is thin and is often used for its fragrant zest.
Stoney Point Orchard, Loomis, CA organic certified:
Rio Red Grapefruit: Juicy and sweet with a bit of tartness. Flesh is pink.
La Bella Vito Farm in Loomis is bringing us fresh🥚 eggs from pastured 🐔🐔chickens. Limited supply.
Winter Hours:
Closed Sundays and Mondays.
Open Tues,Wed and Thurs only two hours 11:30 to 1:30
Open Fri and Sat: 10 am to 6 pm
Please
note, we will be closed on Sundays and Mondays till mid May. We are
open Friday and Saturday and have abbreviated hours on Tuesday,
Wednesday, and Thursday. Sorry for the inconvenience. You are welcome
to call me for special hours at (916) 300-0720, or (916) 791-1656.
March 17, 2025. Little pea sized kernals of ice. A blast of rain drops and with it came the hail. I doubt many fruit or leaves that were exposed got away undamaged. Fortunately it is still early in the season and many trees have not yet put out leaves or tiny fruit. The ume crop however was on its way to being big enough to thin off the less desirable fruitlets. The plums that had already set were so small that the hail probably just knocked them off the tree. The peaches are just at the beginning stages of bloom so only a few fruits were formed. We will see how much is left to harvest. So this is farming. Not much we can do about the weather. I'm hoping that we can avoid more hail events going forward. But, we are not in charge.
On the brighter side lets talk about eggs. Our chicken farmer, La Bella Vito Farm in Loomis, is feeling the effects of longer days. The older hens are producing more regularly. The young ones are starting to lay small eggs. With the shortage of eggs, we are happy to get even these smaller eggs to sell. Supply is still limited, please call during open hours if you want to reserve eggs (916) 791-1656.
Stoney Point Orchard in Loomis has delivered its last picking of certified organic Tango mandarins. Now the trees are empty till next season. The supply is very limited and will be sold out quickly. Stoney Point also delivered Rio Red grapefruit and Navel oranges. These are juicy, sweet and tasty.
Our orchard is waking up. We see blossoms and green leaves pushing out of their winter shell. The weeds are flourishing and will soon add different colors to our green carpet. Yellow, purple and white mustard as well as golden poppies. A week ago I spotted some beneficial insects: lady beetles (ladybugs) and lacewing. I'm happy to see them since we use them to keep pest populations low. This is important since we do not use sprays. Under ground the gophers are waking up. Tree roots and vegetable roots are at risk from these hungry rodents. Many homeowners despise coyotes but I am happy to see a few patrolling the farm.
Here is what we have at the Farm Stand from Otow Orchard.
Hachiya Pulp: Frozen
Hachiya persimmon pulp is available. Often used to make cookies,
puddings and breads. Many customers put it on yogurt and oatmeal or
add it to their smoothie.
Eureka Lemons: These are very tart lemons. Great for contrast in sweet and sour recipes like: lemonade, lemon meringue pie, sweet and sour pork, and lemon bars.
Yellow grapefruit: Sweet tart grapefruit with yellow flesh. This variety has great flavor.
Local Honey Honey 🍯 from bees 🐝 at Otow Orchard. Bee pollen from bees 🐝 at Otow Orchard is also available.
⚘ Calendula Salve and Lip Balm: Wonderfully thick salve for healing dry skin, bug bites and scrapes.
Peach trees: These are bare root peach trees. They should be planted in the next few weeks. 
Here is what we have from other producers:
Pleasant Hill Farm in Lincoln, no spray.
Navel Oranges: Sweet and juicy, orange fleshed oranges.
Stoney Point Orchard, Loomis, CA organic certified:
Meyer Lemons: These lemons have dark yellow skin and are less acidic than regular lemons. Known for their flavor and fragrance.
Rio Red Grapefruit: Juicy and sweet with a bit of tartness. Flesh is pink.
Navel Oranges: An orange is an orange. Sweet juicy oranges.
La Bella Vito Farm in Loomis is bringing us fresh🥚 eggs from pastured 🐔🐔chickens. Limited supply.
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| This Lady Beetle has only a few spots because it just emerged from its pupal state. |
Now is the time to plant bare root peach trees. We have selected old time, flavorful varieties that are sweet, and juicy. Our summertime customers keep asking for them after the trees are empty.
Springcrest: Yellow freestone peach. Early June harvest. Good flavor for an early season peach. Sweet. Self- fruitful.
Summerset: Yellow freestone peach. Mid-August, late season peach. Sweet, juicy, melting flesh. Self- fruitful.
Gene Elberta: Yellow freestone peach. Mid to late July. Great flavor, sweet and juicy. Self- fruitful.
O'Henry: Yellow freestone peach. Early August. Great flavor. Sweet, juicy, firm flesh. Self- fruitful.
Fay Elberta: Yellow freestone peach. Late July. Melting, sweet, juicy flesh. Great flavor. Self- fruitful.
Suncerest: Yellow freestone peach. Late July. Red and yellow flesh. Great flavor, sweet and juicy. Self- fruitful.
Regina: Yellow freestone peach. Late June. Sweet and juicy. Self- fruitful.
We are happy to give planting directions if needed.
Although our winter hours are limited, we have a good supply of seasonal fruit. It is still citrus season. We have mandarins, oranges, lemons, and grapefruit.
We are just about finished putting hoshigaki away in storage. There are a few more boxes to knead and sort. We are finding that many of these last of the season hoshigaki had a hard time drying. Some got hard too fast, others never seemed to dry. Some have less sugar than we expected. Many of these pieces will be cut into strips of hoshigaki for snack bags. They make a nice sweet treat. Gradually, we will be taking Hoshigaki out of storage to sell at the farm stand or through mail orders. Hoshigaki is available in the farm stand and through mail order. Please contact us for large on-farm pick up orders. For mail orders, please use our 2024 mail order form.
We are starting to prepare for our summer vegetable garden. We are excited that our tomato seeds successfully germinated. Now we must watch and water them carefully for the next month. Meanwhile we will be deciding where to plant them and start forming beds for the plants. When the soil warms up we will directly seed summer squash and cucumbers.
Please note, we will be closed on Sundays and Mondays till mid May. We are open Friday and Saturday and have abbreviated hours on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Sorry for the inconvenience. You are welcome to call me for special hours at (916) 300-0720, or (916) 791-1656.
Closed Sundays and Mondays.
Open Tues,Wed and Thurs only two hours 11:30 to 1:30
Open Fri and Sat: 10am to 6pm
Here is what we have at the Farm Stand from Otow Orchard.
Hoshigaki :
These are whole dried persimmons. They were hand massaged while they
dried over a period of four to eight weeks. Some are firm, others are
soft and moist. All are coated with naturally formed white persimmon
sugar. No sugar added and no preservatives used. We strive to make the
best hoshigaki without any shortcuts. This takes time and attention
during the drying season. Hoshigaki are now available in the farm
stand. Contact us for large on-farm
pick-up orders. (916) 791-1656 or email at otowochard@yahoo.com. For mail orders please use our mail order form. 
Hachiya Pulp: Frozen
Hachiya persimmon pulp is available. Often used to make cookies,
puddings and breads. Many customers put it on yogurt and oatmeal or
add it to their smoothie.
Navel Oranges: fresh, sweet and juicy oranges.
Eureka Lemons: These are very tart lemons. Great for contrast in sweet and sour recipes like: lemonade, lemon meringue pie, sweet and sour pork, and lemon bars.
Kiwi: Brown fuzzy skin. Sweet, tart fruit. Green flesh with tiny black seeds. (Limited supply).
Yellow grapefruit: Sweet tart grapefruit with yellow flesh. This variety has great flavor.
Blood oranges: Sweet tart oranges that have deep red flesh.
Local Honey Honey 🍯 from bees 🐝 at Otow Orchard. Bee pollen from bees 🐝 at Otow Orchard is also available.
⚘ Calendula Salve and Lip Balm: Wonderfully thick salve for healing dry skin, bug bites and scrapes.
Peach trees: These are bare root peach trees. They should be planted in the next few weeks. See list above.
Here is what we have from other producers:
Pleasant Hill Farm in Lincoln, no spray.
Navel Oranges: Sweet and juicy, orange fleshed oranges.
Stoney Point Orchard, Loomis, CA organic certified:
Tango mandarin: Sweet, tender mandarins. Thin tight skin.
Blood oranges: Sweet oranges with red flesh.
Meyer Lemons: These lemons have dark yellow skin and are less acidic than regular lemons. Known for their flavor and fragrance. Skin is thin and is often used for its fragrant zest.
La Bella Vito Farm in Loomis is bringing us fresh🥚 eggs from pastured 🐔🐔chickens. Limited supply.
What does slow season look like on the farm at the beginning of February? No fresh persimmons, apples, peaches, plums, tomatoes or squash. We are dreaming of the next crop of these. Branches are bare with no leaves or fruit. Vegetable seeds are still hiding in their little seed packets waiting for soil and moisture. workers are pruning branches, cleaning up last year's summer gardens, and the tractor is tilling the soil and adding decomposed horse manure to the orchard and gardens.
Slow Season is citrus season. We have mandarins. lemons, and oranges. Satsuma mandarins from Otow Orchard have sold out but we have a supply from Mihara Farm in Lincoln. Pleasant Hill Farm in Lincoln brought us Navel and Cara Cara Oranges. Lupi Farm in Granite Bay is supplying us with beautiful fragrant Meyer Lemons. Our own orchard is supplying us with Clementine mandarins and Navel oranges. In a few weeks we will be getting pink grapefruit.
The Kiwi vine is slowly giving us a small harvest. We would like the kiwi to be vine ripened but frost may dictate the harvest. Wait and see.
We received a shipment of bare root fruit trees for planting. We have selected our favorite varieties to replant bare spots in the orchard. Since we had to order more than we need we are making trees available for sale here at the orchard. We have peaches, plums, apples, mulberries, apricots, and ume.
It may be February but the hoshigaki we peeled in December is still being processed. They are finished drying but we are giving them another massage and sorting them by texture and quality. Hoshigaki is available in the farm stand and through mail order. Please contact us for large on-farm pick up orders. For mail orders, please use our mail order form.
Please note, we will be closed on Sundays and Mondays till mid May. We are open Friday and Saturday and have abbreviated hours on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Sorry for the inconvenience. You are welcome to call me for special hours at (916) 300-0720, or (916) 791-1656.
Closed Sundays and Mondays.
Open Tues,Wed and Thurs only two hours 11:30 to 1:30
Open Fri and Sat: 10am to 6pm
Here is what we have at the Farm Stand from Otow Orchard.
Asian Pears: Asian pears should be enjoyed while firm and crisp like an apple.
Clementine Mandarins: Deep orange easy to peel skin, Sweet and juicy.
⚘ Calendula Salve and Lip Balm: Wonderfully thick salve for healing dry skin, bug bites and scrapes.
Here is what we have from other producers:
Pleasant Hill Farm in Lincoln, no spray.
Navel Oranges: Sweet and juicy, orange fleshed oranges.
Cara Cara Oranges: These
oranges are orange on the outside but pinkish orange on the inside.
Plus the flesh is sweet and juicy. They are thin skinned and sweeter
than navels.
Satsuma Mandarins: Easy to peel, sweet mandarins from the foothills of Placer County. These are are citrus y
sweet and full of juice.
Lupi Farm
in Granite Bay, no spray: Meyer Lemons: These sought after lemons are
less acidic than regular lemons. They have a thin peel often used for
its fragrant zest. Meyer are rounder than regular lemons with a dark
yellow skin.
La Bella Vito Farm in Loomis is bringing us fresh🥚 eggs from pastured 🐔🐔chickens. Limited supply.
Winter is here and our citrus are starting. Mandarins are the star of the season. Sweet, juicy and easy to peel. We have been selling mandarins from the foothills where they seem to mature earlier than for us in Granite Bay. We have started to harvest our trees. As in past years we wait to harvest hoping the fruit will be sweeter and more flavorful. The disadvantage is that we run the risk of frost damage. So far there have been no threats of damaging low temperatures. 😀
Lupi Farm in Granite Bay is bringing us Meyer Lemons. Meyer Lemons are a cross between a citron and a mandarin. They are yellow with a tint of orange in the skin and are sweeter and less acidic than traditional lemons. The skin is fragrant and the zest often used to flavor special dishes. I use them in desserts and to brighten salad dressings. I also add juice to soups and stews and of course in a cup of sweetened tea.
Pleasant Hill Farm in Lincoln just delivered boxes of CaraCara oranges. These oranges are orange on the outside but pinkish orange on the inside. Plus the flesh is sweet and juicy. They are thin skinned and sweeter than navals.
I hesitate to announce this too early but modified hours are coming. These hours will apply for the months of February, March, April and most of May.
Closed Sundays and Mondays.
Open Tues, Wed and Thurs only two hours 11:30 to 1:30
Open Fri and Sat: 10am to 6pm
During these slow months we normally sell oranges, grapefruit, lemons, honey, hoshigaki and kiwi.
Persimmon harvest is over. We continue to have persimmons to sell at the farm stand. The Fuyu are getting sweeter but admittedly more tender. We have more sweet, soft Hachiyas than hard ones. Some customers are freezing the pulp in zip top bags for winter smoothies and for baking. The brown flesh persimmons and the Vodka persimmons have sold out for now.
Hoshigaki processing is still keeping us busy. Although we have no fresh Hachiya to peel, there is still a lot of massaging and handling going on in the finishing stage of making hoshigaki. We seem to have gotten a late start so the season has dragged on into January and maybe February. We are caught up on the hoshigaki pre orders and are accepting new orders. For mail orders use our mail order form. For large on farm pick up orders call (916) 791-1656 or email at : otoworchard@yahoo.com
Just when I thought I could see the end of hoshigaki work I spied this pile of strings. Loops of strings with a a stem attached to each end. I'll be using my spare time for the next few months removing each stem before washing the strings to get them ready for the next season of Hoshigaki processing. Thanks to my sister-in-law, I only have to clean half of them.
REGULAR HOURS
Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat: 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
Sunday: 11:00 to 5:00
Closed on Mondays
Here is what we have at the Farm Stand from Otow Orchard.
Persimmon:
Hachiya: Popular persimmon. Until soft it is very astringent. Hachiya are tall and pointed like an acorn. These are often used in cookies, breads, and puddings. Many people enjoy just eating them out of hand or pairing them with ice cream, smoothies, or oatmeal. This is also the variety most commonly used to make hoshigaki (Japanese hand dried persimmons). Frozen Hachiya persimmon pulp is also available.
Quince:
Firm yellow fruit, always tart, wonderfully aromatic. Used for jam,
jelly, candy, and sauce due to its high pectin content. Often added to
stews.
Asian Pears: Asian pears should be enjoyed while firm and crisp like an apple.
Okusankichi: Large brown Asian pear. Crisp and juicy. This is a
winter keeper and is not as sweet as the earlier varieties. Very
refreshing. Thick skin with course white flesh. Flavor improves with
storage.
⚘ Calendula Salve and Lip Balm: Wonderfully thick salve for healing dry skin, bug bites and scrapes.
Here is what we have from other producers:
Pleasant Hill Farm in Lincoln, no spray.
Cara Cara Oranges: These oranges are orange on the outside but pinkish orange on the inside. Plus the flesh is sweet and juicy. They are thin skinned and sweeter than navels.
Mihara Farm in Lincoln, Conventional practices. Satsuma Mandarins: Easy to peel, sweet mandarins from the foothills of Placer County. These are are citrus y
sweet/tart and full of juice.
Lupi Farm
in Granite Bay, no spray: Meyer Lemons: These sought after lemons are
less acidic than regular lemons. They have a thin peel often used for
its fragrant zest. Meyer are rounder than regular lemons with a dark
yellow skin.
La Bella Vito Farm in Loomis is bringing us fresh🥚 eggs from pastured 🐔🐔chickens. Limited supply.
