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THIS WEEK’S FRUIT
Warren Pear
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
This is Frog Hollow Farm’s signature pear for good reason. Too difficult to grow for most farmers, it’s never caught on commercially but, Farmer Al has never shied away from putting the time and effort into a fruit that tastes this good. It has a classic European texture – very soft and juicy with a silky sweetness that avoids the typical grittiness found in most pears.
Fuyu Persimmon
Milleans Orchards, Lodi, CA and Chiechi Farm, Live Oak, CA
The Fuyu has a crisp texture with a rich honey sweet flavor. They have a beautiful orange to red hue when ripe, often with tiny brown speckles on the skin. They can be eaten out of hand with skin on or peeled.
Hayward Kiwi
Chiechi 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.
Satsuma Mandarin
Terra Firma, Winters
Satsumas are typically seedless with a thin skin that is loosely attached to the flesh making them very easy to peel. The flesh of the mandarin is very sweet and delicate leaving them susceptible to bruising, so handle with care.
Fuji Apple
Cuyama, New Cuyama,CA
Fujis are a cross between Red Delicious and Ralls Janet, an heirloom apple dating back to Thomas Jefferson.
A NOTE FROM FARMER AL
Dear CSA Members,
As rain approaches, followed by a dry Thanksgiving Day, we have so much to be thankful for here at Frog Hollow Farm. Actually, every day of the year I give thanks to the beauty of this place. And each of the four seasons has its own kind of beauty. This year the fall brings extraordinary colors to the palette of the farm landscape. Apricot leaves are a buttery yellow with fringes of crimson. The peaches are clad in gold leaves and at sundown they glow with an intensity that evokes a sense of wonder in the soul of the beholder.
The Santa Rosa leaves are almost the color of their fruits, purple-violet, shimmering in the afternoon breeze. And right next to them, the Flavor King pluots have shed all their leaves, revealing the sturdy structure of their scaffold limbs, and the cobweb fingers of fruit wood; quite the contrast to their stately appeal during the Spring and Summer months. One grove of nectarines looks like a copper kettle with a fire burning beneath it. And throughout every row of trees the ground is clad in a carpet of green.
Pruning has begun in earnest, so the “tree team” is very happy knowing that they’ll have steady work for the rest of the year and into 2016. I can hear them laughing and joking as I approach from a distance. And the “ground team” boys are weed-whacking rows of cherry trees, leaving the orchard looking neat and trim! Compost production continues on schedule with six windrows (each windrow is about 70 tons of compost) almost ready to spread, and 4 windrows in various stages of construction. We’ve even had time to clear weeds from about 1/4 mile of storm drain ditches along Highway 4.
Even our winter vegetable garden is “soil-ready” to be planted in onions, garlic, lettuce, kale, and other winter greens. All in all, we’re well-prepared and ready for what we hope will be a record “El Nino” winter!
Best,
