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THIS WEEK’S FRUIT
Tarocco Blood Orange
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
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.
Ruby Grapefruit
Sundance Organic, Oceanside, CA
The Grapefruit is said to cross between the Jamaican sweet orange and the Indonesian pomelo, first documented in 1750. Ruby grapefruit was an accidental discovery of a red fruit growing on a pink grapefruit tree.
Fuji Apples
Cuyama Farm, New Cuyama, CA
Fujis are a cross between Red Delicious and Ralls Janet, an heirloom apple dating back to Thomas Jefferson. Fujis are loved by many for their crisp, sweet, and juicy character.
Hayward Kiwis
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 even- tually became the preferred cultivar of growers due to their sweet flavor and thin skin.
Owari Satsuma Mandarins
Abounding Harvest Mounain Farm, Los Gatos, CA
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.
Hass Avocados
Calavo Growers, Santa Paula, 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
Minneola
Sundance, Oceanside, CA
The Tangelo is a cross between a mandarin and grapefruit. Its skin is easy to peel and its flesh is a deep orange, tender and juicy with a rich and sweet flavor.
Golden Nuggets
Sundance, Oceanside, CA
Appearances aren’t everything. The bumpy peel of the Gold Nugget givesway to a richly flavored and sweet tart flesh.
Cara Cara Oranges
Cousins Organic Citrus, Orange Grove, CA
A medium sized red fleshed, seedless navel orange. Cara caras are a low acid orange that makes the flesh sweeter and more complex than most navels.
A NOTE FROM CHEF BECKY
“Everything is blooming most recklessly…”
Dear CSA Members,
Today was another gorgeous day on the farm. It started out foggy and cold but turned sunny and glorious by late morning. The trees are beginning to bloom, the apricots, a few early nectarines and now the dapple dandy plouts and we’re taking advantage of this great weather to pollinate. We pollinate to insure crop size and help Mother Nature along for our cherries, plums and pears and the robada apricots, all fruits that require pollinators. (Peaches and Nectarines are self- pollinating). Pollination is a tricky business, sometimes the bees aren’t attracted to a certain flower, or they are attracted to a weed flower that blooms at the same time, like mustard or there aren’t enough bees to begin with. In a weird year like this, with everything so early there could be poor bloom overlap which also can effect pollination adversely.
Collecting pollen is tricky as well. Pollen is a natural living thing and the conditions under which it is collected, stored and shipped all impact how viable it will be. Companies that supply pollen collect flowers from specific varieties of flowers, extract that pollen (not by bees), dry it, store and ship it to farmers like us.
It is critical to get pollen onto the blossoms when they are the most receptive and this varies depending on the type of tree and the weather conditions during bloom. The time of best receptivity for blossoms is about 12 to 72 hours after they open depending on how warm it is. In cooler climates, the pollen is shed more slowly. When the anthers have shed most but not all of their pollen, they are the most receptive. We do it twice, once at the beginning of bloom when the trees are at about 50% bloom and later when they are just coming off full bloom.
So, the dapple dandys are beginning to bloom and today Virgilio set off on a flat- bed golf cart down the orchard row for the first application. On the flatbed of the cart, is a machine called a “scumby puffer”. It is a small gasoline powered motor that has a large metal hopper and a small meter attached. It disperses the pollen throughout the orchard, economically and precisely. He’ll do it again on those same trees in a couple of days, in the meantime we’ll keep an eye on the Robadas. The pear and cherry blossoms will come a little later.
In spite of the warm winter it looks like we have a lot of blossoms on the trees. Now we’re doing what we can to assure a good fruit set.
