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This Week’s Fruit

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. The apple a day adage may be spot on. Recent research has shown that apples are associated with lower risk of heart diseases and strokes. They are also an excellent source of fiber and a good source of vitamin C.

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. Kiwis are a great source of Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Potassium and Copper, and a very good source of Vitamin C and Vitamin K.

Gold Nugget Mandarins or Clementines
Olsen Organic Farms, Lindsay, CA
Appearances aren’t everything. The bumpy peel of the Gold Nugget gives way to a richly flavored and sweet flesh. Clementines are the smallest variety of mandarin oranges. They are a cross between a sweet orange and a Chinese mandarin. Both varieties are usually seedless and easy to peel making them a good choice for lunch boxes. These mandarins are rich in potassium, vitamin C and vitamin B-complex minerals like niacin and thiamine.

Navel Oranges
Olsen Organic Farms, Lindsay, CA or Twin Girls Farm, Yettem, CA
California Navel Oranges are considered to be the best 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.

A Note from Farmer Al

Dear CSA Members,

The month of January starts out slow. The holiday rush is suddenly over, and it is so cold outside that everything and everybody is moving slowly. But cold weather is exactly what we need right now for our trees. In Pomology it is called winter chill, and each variety of fruit has its own genetically coded requirement for hours of winter chill. (Except citrus which do not require any chill hours). A chilling unit is one hour of temperatures below 45 degrees occurring between November 1st and February 28th. If the minimum chill hour accumulation is reached, the flower buds will “break rest” evenly, uniform good pollination can occur and fruit quality will be better.

So we are watching the clock, so to speak, meaning we’re keeping close tabs on our chill hours and comparing this years’ accumulations to that of previous years’. So far we have about 530 hours compared to about 700 hours last year by this date, making us behind well behind of what we need. Cherry trees need the most chill hours of all the fruits we grow; 900 is good but 1000 is better. Cherry
growers all across California are beginning to be very concerned about global warming as they have seen a steady decline in chill hour accumulations over the past 10 years.

January is also the month to do grafting. We are constantly seeking to improve our fruit offerings and over the years we’ve discovered new varieties and perhaps have realized some varieties we planted years ago need to be changed. Grafting is one way to change varieties quickly, and relatively inexpensively. This year will be a big grafting year for us. We’ll be grafting apricots, peaches, and nectarines.

January is also conference month. This year we’ll be attending 3, all in Monterey which is a great place to be in January. Lael will be attending an international gathering of CSAs in Carmel. Matt Strom will be attending the world renowned Eco-Farm conference at Asilomar, I will be attending the Board of Directors retreat for Pacific Coast Farmers’ Market Association held each year at Cannery Row and Becky will attend the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. Suddenly January is becoming a very busy month indeed!