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THIS WEEKS FRUIT
Navel Oranges
Olsen Organic Farm, 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. Store out of sunlight for 2-4 days on the counter or up to two weeks in the fridge.
Ruby Grapefruit
Purity Organic, Coachella, CA
The Grapefruit is said to cross between the Jamaican sweet orange and the Indonesian pomelo, first documented in 1750. Red grapefruit was an accidental discovery of a red fruit growing on a pink grapefruit tree. Prized for their beautiful color and sweet flesh. Store out of sunlight for 2-4 days on the counter or up to two weeks in the fridge.
Mineola Tangelo
Sundance Natural, Oceanside, CA
Minneolas are a cross between a grapefruit and a mandarin. Their peel is a smooth orange-red. The shape slightly resembles a bell with a round body and pronounced neck. Minnoelas have a juicy sweet flavor with a hint of tartness harkening to their grapefruit parentage. Store out of sunlight for 2-4 days on the counter or up to two weeks in the fridge.
Hayward Kiwi
Chieci Farm, Live Oak, CA
Originally known as the Chinese gooseberry due to its Chinese origins. 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. The kiwis are ripe and ready to eat upon arrival. Consume first or store in the fridge.
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. Pink skins and a creamy white colored flesh that resists browning makes, this an excellent apple for salads and slicing. Store on your counter out of direct light for 4-5 days. Refrigerate after to maintain crispness.
Hass Avocado
Earthbound Farm, Carmel, 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.
A NOTE FROM FARMER AL
Dear CSA Members,
The rain has returned after two and one half dry winter months! We are all so happy and so thankful! Even my crew, who now must be “laid off” for several days due to muddy conditions, are expressing relief and joy. Dusty December and the surreal sunny days of January just felt so strange and unnatural. It made us all feel uneasy and “off-balance”.
Now, we get to our normal worries, such as “Will this rain cause brown rot blossom blight on our apricots”? They are just now beginning to bloom. This is the most vulnerable stage of growth for apricots, and massive crop failure could result, just as it did in 2010 and 2011. I go out to the trees each day now to check for the disease – so far so good.
Tomorrow we will spray compost tea on all 26 acres of our “cots,” plus about 4 acres of Dapple Dandy Pluots which are also beginning to bloom. This tea is very heavily populated with high concentrations of fungus, bacteria, protozoa, nematodes and other microbes which we hope will either consume or out-compete the pathogenic monilinia fructicola which consumes the blossoms overnight if left unchecked!
We are also counting on the compost to help control this devastating pathogen. The compost changes the ecology of the soil, where the feared pathogens also reside (i.e., they are present both on the branches of the trees and in the soil). So to summarize, we’re using compost on the ground and compost tea sprayed on the branches, to overwhelm the pathogens with a healthy microbial environment.
Weather conditions this year are lining up to be a “perfect storm” for a bad brown rot year, this will provide the “acid” test for the “compost theory”.
