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This Week’s Fruit

Hass Avocados
Eco Farm, Rainbow,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
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.

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. Pink skins and a creamy white colored flesh that resists browning makes this an excellent apple for salads and slicing. 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. Fuji skins often display a speckled or striped pattern.

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
Etheridge Farm, Dinuba, 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.

Murcott Tangerines
Etheridge Farm, Dinuba, CA
Murcott Tangerines are late season tangerine known for their rich flavor and deeply hued flesh and juice. Their small size and sweet juice makes them a favorite with little ones.

A Note from Farmer Al

Dear CSA Members,

80,000 Tons Per Day

That is how much compostable garbage is generated EVERY DAY in California. This number almost boggles the mind. But it also challenges the intellect of many very smart people….scientists, engineers, city planners, employed in all levels of government from city to county and up to state levels. The challenge is how to get this done? How do we actually make that much compost, every day, and then how to get it distributed to where it can do the most good on farms and ranches across the state.

This past weekend I traveled to southern California to spend time with John Cullen Davis, a city planner who now works with San Bernardino County Waste Management. He gave me a tour of their waste management processing facilities where they actually separate out all the different kinds of garbage that come in from people like you and me.

Turns out that the vast majority of people just thoughtlessly dump all of their garbage into one container and probably don’t even give a second thought as to what actually happens to it after it is picked up from their home. Historically, it was all just dumped “at the dump”, now known as landfills. Which are all huge sources of methane gas, nitric oxide gas, and CO2.

So this giant facility in San Bernardino and dozens of waste management sites across the state have the task of separating out all the different kinds of garbage so that each different kind can be appropriately recycled or composted. Ultimately, how we do this (handle our garbage) is a very large global warming challenge. But when talking about garbage, we must first discuss why we have so much of it. It all has to do with our life style choices, our values, and our cultural….the “American Way of Life”. More next time…..