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This week’s fruit:
Minneloa Tangelos
Twin Girls, Dinuba, 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 tart flavor.
Hass Avocado
Churchill Orchards, Ojai, 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.
Moro Blood Oranges
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
Moros have a deep red flesh and tart flavor with a rind that tends to blush into hues of red. The Moro is a wonderful orange for juicing or cooking due to its bright flavor and color.
Meyer Lemons
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
Thought to be a cross between a regular (Eureka or Lisbon) lemon and a Mandarin orange. They have a smooth deep yellow peel that is highly aromatic and great to use as zest in recipes and a sweeter less acidic flesh than standard lemons.
Navel Oranges
Olsen Organics, 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 sweet flesh that makes them a perfect snack.
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. They are one of the sweetest variety apples around making them a household favorite.
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.
Star Ruby Grapefruit
Rainbow Valley Orchards, Temecula, Ca
The Grapefruit is said to be a cross between the Jamaican sweet orange and the Indonesian pomelo, first documented in 1750. Under its thick, red-blushed skin you’ll find an aromatic, ruby red, juicy flesh with a perfect sweet tart flavor.
A Note From Farmer Al
Dear CSA members,
We’re planting trees today. I’m watching every tree go in the ground to ensure the planting is done carefully. There are several steps that our planting team need to follow to be sure the trees have a good start.
One of the things we do at planting time is to wash and trim the bare roots of the tree. This
trimming removes broken or damaged roots. The remaining healthy roots are then sprayed
with galltrol to prevent “crown gall” infections, as is seen in the picture. (See last week’s note for more information on crown gall. The peach variety we’re planting today is a new Dave Wilson Nursery release. It has really abundant long (8-10”) roots, which is great.
However, it requires additional work on our end. While some of the men wash and trim, others dig the holes into which we place the trees. Because this variety of peach has such abundant roots, our guys have to work extra hard to dig holes wide and deep enough to accommodate the large roots.
How the trees and roots are placed into each hole is also very important. Tree roots need to be pointing down. To get the roots to do this we need the hole to be sufficiently deep and
have ample space around the roots. Once we’ve placed the tree in the hole, we backfill it with soil and then pull the tree upward. The weight and friction of the soil pull the roots down into the correct position.
To good growth!
Farmer Al
