Fruit & News of the Week: July 4th

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THIS WEEK’S FRUIT: 

Suncrest Peaches
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
A Slow Food Ark heritage variety, the Suncrest has all the old-fashioned taste of days gone by. Its a truly memorable peach whose firm but juicy flesh provides a real eat-over-the-sink experience. Gently tapered, the Suncrest has hardly any blush to speak of on its rich yellow skin. A more fragile variety, the Suncrest bruises easily when picked, but as many of our farmers market customers know, a picking bruise means the fruit is extra delicious.

Flavor Top Nectarines
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
The Flavor Top is one of the highest scoring nectarine varieties in regional fruit tastings. It’s a beautiful variety, with bold streaks of red and yellow and firm succulent flesh. They hold up extremely well when sliced so are ideally suited for a fragrant midsummer fruit salad and are one of the varieties we especially recommend for grilling.

Dapple Dandy Pluot
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
Playfully called the “dinosaur egg” pluot, the Dapple Dandy has marbled pink and green skin over delicate white flesh threaded with rose. Kids especially love this pluot for its distinctive coloration and the lack of tartness in the skin.

A NOTE FROM FARMER AL:

Dear CSA Members,

Dr. Gordon Frankie spotted a new weed, at least new to us, here at Frog Hollow Farm! He found it in our new 20- acre peach planting. He was most excited to see this particular species because it’s not native to California, and is rarely seen here. It’s actually an Arizona native called Verbesina, and it’s a member of the sunflower family. It looks just like a miniature sunflower. Gordon was here showing me where he’d found a few isolated little patches of them growing and he picked one and stuffed the stem into my overalls chest pocket. I worked all day with it in the pocket until late afternoon. I noticed it when I got home and it was, of course wilted. I put it into a small slender vase (the single yellow bloom) and forgot about it. The next day it had totally recovered and looked fresh and beautiful. It was quite the dramatic “comeback” for such a small delicate flower!

Gordon was very excited to see this interloper on our farm and anxiously urged me to train our men not to weed whack them into oblivion. The ground team were up to the task! They paid special attention when weed whacking that block of trees last week and now I can see a dozen small groups (or “strands”) of Verbesina scattered over a 5-acre area.

Gordon says native bees love Verbisina. I’m very excited to see if we can get them to thrive, spread out, and expand their population! They are beautiful to look at; they’re about a foot high and a splash of gold in a sea of green.

Organically Yours, 

Farmer Al