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THIS WEEK’S FRUIT:
Emerald Beaut Plum
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
A freestone plum, the Emerald Beaut is a delicate green that turns golden with a hint of a blush. It has a firmer texture than the Santa Rosa with a crisp almost crunchy mouthfeel. One of our most hardy fruit, the Emerald Beaut just gets sweeter and sweeter without losing texture as it ages.
Hosui Asian Pear
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
Hosuis have a rougher, thicker skin than the other Asian pear varieties we grow. They have a flesh that while still crunchy has a more melting mouthful, making the texture combination when eaten out of hand spectacular. Very sweet with a mild pear taste, their round shape and beautiful golden hue make them ideal for presentation with a distinctively Autumnal feel.
Pink Lady Apple
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
Pink Lady’s are a cross between the Golden Delicious and Lady Williams. They are a crisp and juicy apple with a tart finish. Pink skins and a creamy white colored flesh that resists browning make this an excellent apple for salads and slicing.
Warren Pear
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
Featured in Martha Stewart Living and Oprah’s Favorite Things List, this is Frog Hollow Farm’s signature pear and for good reason. The Warren pear has a classic European texture – very soft and juicy – with a silky sweetness that avoids the typical grittiness found in most varieties.
Flavor Fall Pluot
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
The Flavor Fall is reddish-purple over tender, yellow flesh that’s extremely juicy. One of our last stone fruits of the season, the Flavor Fall is a welcome reminder of the height of summer.
Red Flame Grapes
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
With a firm texture outside and a juicy springing bite, these sweetly flavored grapes are a delight.
….all varieties are subject to change…
A NOTE FROM FARMER AL:
“Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.”
Dear CSA Members,
Dust is the dominant theme this week at Frog Hollow Farm. It’s reawakening marks the end of summer and the beginning of Fall here as much as cooler nights and the diminishing daylight hours.
The corn and tomato crops that surround us are mostly all harvested. The plants have been plowed under in the 1000 acre fields and big tractors are ripping and disking the ground creating huge clouds of dirt. It billows up into the sky, obscuring our view of Mount Diablo and creating a minor air quality hazard.
Our amazing soil conditions, weather and proximity to the market have made Brentwood corn famous. White and Yellow corn thrives here and thousands of acres are planted in it. And now it is time to disc, rip, land-plane and furrow those acres.
While Brentwood corn is the “darling” crop in Brentwood, cannery tomatoes edge them out by about 2 million dollars in revenue. All harvested by machine with very little labor, these roma style cannery tomatoes are hard and durable to withstand the harvesting machinery and long distance shipping they endure. Tomatoes are #1 vegetable consumed by Americans, mostly in our beloved ketchup, pasta sauces and salsas. California pretty much feeds the nation for tomatoes; If there are tomatoes are in it, California grew them (and probably Brentwood). It’s not the kind of Ag we practice here at Frog Hollow Farm, but nonetheless it feeds a lot of people.
We too, at Frog Hollow are creating our fair share of dust as we make ready our orchards for next year. We are preparing 20 acres of open ground to plant more trees this winter and we’re mowing our apricot prunings, a very sooty operation. Just driving around the farm these days is a wary proposition as the dust clings to people, cars, golf carts and tree leaves. The dust carries with it dust mites, unwelcome little scoundrels that eat the trees leaves before they fall off naturally, robbing them of the nutrients they need and causing uncomfortable itching for crew pruning those trees.
Just about now, we start wishing for rain, preferring the prospect sticky, wet mud to this dry, insidious dust. The only good thing about all this dust is that makes the most beautiful sunsets of the entire year!
Farmer Al
