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This Week’s Fruit

Hass Avocados
Stehly Farms Organics, Valley Center, CA
Creamy in texture, nutty in flavor, with a small to medium seed. The Hass skin is easy to peel and darkens from green to purplish-black as it ripens. You can tell it is ripe by the color of the skin (dark) and if it yields to pressure.

Pink Lady Apples & Fuji Apples
Cayuma Orchards, New Cayuma, CA
A cross between the Golden Delicious and Lady Williams, the Pink Lady is a crisp and juicy apple with a tart finish. A creamy white colored flesh that resists browning makes this an excellent apple for salads and slicing. Also a modern day favorite for eating out of hand. A cross between the Golden Delicious and Lady Williams, the Pink Lady is a crisp and juicy apple with a tart finish. A creamy white colored flesh that resists browning makes this an excellent apple for salads and slicing. Also a modern day favorite for eating out of hand. Fujis are a cross between Red Delicious and Ralls Janet, an heirloom apple dating back to Thomas Jeffrson. Fujis are loved by many for their crisp, sweet, and juicy character.

Hayward Kiwi
Chiechi Farms, Live Oak, CA
Originally known as the Chinese gooseberry due to its Chinese orgins. Hawyward Wright, a New Zealand nurseryman propagated his plants by grafting and they eventually became the preferred cultivar of growers due to their sweet flavor and thin skin.

Navel Oranges
Olsen Organic Farms, Lindsay, CA
California Navel Oranges are considered to be the best Navels for eating out of hand. They have a thick skin that is easy to peel, are seedless, and have a meaty and sweet flesh that makes them a perfect snack. Navels are also great for juicing and cooking.

Taccoro Blood Oranges
A beautiful orange to deep red flesh is revealed when you slice open a Tarocco. The flesh of the blood orange is firmer and more dense than an orange and its flavor is a little more tart. These beauties sweeten and darken in color as the season progresses.

A Note from Farmer Al

Dear CSA Members,

Our first peach variety called Rich Zee is in full bloom as are the first two apricot varieties, Apaches and Kettlemen, and they look great. We did get some rain last Tuesday, but it was a very cold rain, and so far no “Brown Rot Blossom Blight” can be found thank goodness! And “No Rain” is predicted for the next 10 days. We are very happy! And praying for no rain!

I’ve been out in the orchard pruning the peach trees we planted last year and the day is unbelievably beautiful. Looking eastward I can see the entire Sierra Nevada Range with visibility of 100 miles to the north, and one hundred miles to the south. One hundred miles due east, the Crystal Range stands tall and wide, shimmering white with snow in the afternoon sunlight. Fifty-five years ago, as a boy scout in troop 23 of Berkeley, we used to have a camp at Lake-of-the-Woods, in Desolation Valley, and we would climb Pyramid Peak, (10,000 feet elevation), the southernmost mountain of the Crystal Range. On a day like today it seems so close it’s almost a part of the farm, at the eastern edge of this Great Central Valley.

I talked with Alan Hawkins today and he told me the bees are in trouble in California. At this stage of winter, with not enough food for the bees to forage, leaving too low energy in the hives, they are struggling to keep the queen warm through the winter months. His bees however are doing better than most, so he’s happy. It may be because here at Frog Hollow we maintain a lush cover crop year-round and there is always something in bloom. And Alan “baby sits” his bees, paying close attention to the energy levels and stress levels of each hive, moving “frames” from stronger hives over to the weaker hives to balance the energy levels.

Soon, the phacelia tanacretafolia will bloom, erupting in a riot of purple and driving the bees wild. Native to California and the Southwest, this wildflower is so productive for bees that it has been extensively planted all over Europe in orchards and vineyards, and in Germany it is known as “bee’s friend”!

Thanks to Gordon Frankie, U.C. Berkeley entomologist and world renowned native bee expert, for introducing this species to Frog Hollow Farm. He planted acres of it in the fall, 2011, and now they just come up by themselves without any effort on our part. We LOVE it! They should be blooming by March 10th for our “Blossom Walk” event.

See you all then,