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.

Happy New Year

The fruit stand will be closed on New Year's Day and the day after, (Jan. 1st and 2nd). We'll open again on Saturday, Jan. 3rd.

Above is a photo of Viviano next to the mochi-pounding mortar at the orchard.

What's at the Fruit Stand

At the fruit stand we have:

• Fresh Persimmons--Hachiya (soft and hard), gyombo (soft), Fuyu, Maru and vodka-treated Hyakume
• Kiwi--picked 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
  

The last hard fuyu persimmons are starting to soften, so if you want hard ones, you'll need to get them soon. Some of the fuyu are still hard, but it's too late in the season for them to be crisp and crunchy anymore.

Above is a photo of kiwi fruit growing on vines at the orchard.

Hoshigaki Update

Hoshigaki (dried persimmon) is not available for sale at the fruit stand for now. We need to fill our previous mail orders and wait for the last persimmons to finish drying. At the very end of the season hoshigaki take longer to finish, and the quality is not always as good. The last persimmons peeled for drying were ripest and more likely to develop tears when drying and massaging. The weather to dry the last persimmons is less sunny and more damp and cold than Fall weather, also, so this makes drying take longer.

We expect that we'll have hoshigaki to pick up for sale in the fruit stand again in mid-January, but we may not have premium quality. If you would like to be added to a waiting list and notified when the last of this season's hoshigaki is available at the fruit stand, please call or email us. Our email is otoworchard@yahoo.com, and our phone number is (916) 791-7165.

At left is a photo of a box of hoshigaki strings and stems, snapped off from the persimmons when they're nearly finished drying. We carefully take the stems out of the loops and wash the strings to use them again for next season.

An End to New Hoshigaki Orders

Thank you for all your interest and orders our massaged dried persimmons (hoshigaki). We now have to stop accepting any new mail orders for Hoshigaki for this season. If you have already sent in an order, we do expect to be able to fill it, but we are unable to take any more new orders.

We hope to be finished sending out all the mail orders we've already received by mid-January. If you've sent in your order recently, you probably already know that orders sent to us after Dec. 4th are unlikely to arrive at their destinations by Christmas. Please email us with any questions about your order (otoworchard@yahoo.com).

Our small family orchard has only a few workers and hoshigaki really is a "Slow Food". Now with the colder and more damp weather, the persimmons now hanging on the racks are likely to take 8 weeks to complete the drying process, as compared to a minimum of 4 weeks as in October. It's not possible to speed up the process and still have nice, soft hoshigaki. We appreciate your patience.

We still have small amounts for of hoshigaki (hand-dried persimmons) for sale at the fruit stand if you're able to come to our orchard and pick it up, but we don't have enough left to take any new mail orders. It's helpful to call ahead to the fruit stand if you plan to come pick up hoshigaki so that we can have it reserved for you. Our phone number is (916) 791-1656.

In September of 2009 we'll start taking orders for next year. If you want to order next year, we recommend that you get your order in as early as possible, because we fill the earliest ones first.

The above photo is a close up of hoshigaki (massaged dried persimmon). You can see the natural sugar that comes out on the surface.