This Week’s Fruit

Pink Lady Apples & Fuji Apples Cayuma Orchards, New Cayuma, CA A cross between the Golden Delicious and Lady Williams, the Pink Lady is a crisp and juicy apple with a tart finish. A creamy white colored flesh that resists browning makes this an excellent apple for salads and slicing. Also a modern day favorite for eating out of hand. A cross between the Golden Delicious and Lady Williams, the Pink Lady is a crisp and juicy apple with a tart finish. A creamy white colored flesh that resists browning makes this an excellent apple for salads and slicing. Also a modern day favorite for eating out of hand. Fujis are a cross between Red Delicious and Ralls Janet, an heirloom apple dating back to Thomas Jeffrson. Fujis are loved by many for their crisp, sweet, and juicy character. Hayward Kiwi Chiechi Farms, Live Oak, CA Originally known as the Chinese gooseberry due to its Chinese orgins. 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. Navel Oranges Olsen Organic Farms, 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 meaty and sweet flesh that makes them a perfect snack. Navels are also great for juicing and cooking. Meyer Lemons Native to China, Meyers are a cross between a lemon and either a mandarin or a true orange. Their round shape and smooth rind encases an often orange hued flesh that is sweeter and more subtle than your common lemon. Meyer lemons are wonderful for cooking, baking, and an assortment of beverages. Taccoro Blood Oranges 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.

A Note from Farmer Al

Dear CSA Members, As I drove to the farm from the house early yesterday morning, running through the orchard was a coyote, with rusty red thick fur, the best looking coyote ever. Usually, coyotes are grey and scraggly and scrawny, but not this guy. It was the third time I had seen him in a week and he wasn’t cowardly in his leisurely lope through the open, leaf-less landscape of the dormant trees. Then, just above came the screech of a large red-tailed hawk, another familiar critter I had noticed several times before. I was passing through the Apache and Kettleman apricots as I witnessed all this and looking more closely realized that there were thousands of red eyes watching me. The buds on the cots were bursting with red…a stage of growth we call “red bud” in apricots (in peaches it is called “pink bud”) which is when the buds are beginning to open up. (“Bud swell” is the stage of growth just before red bud and I’m seeing it in all varieties of our fruits, indicating that this year will be an unusually early harvest.) I thought about the blood oranges with their wine-red flesh and their red-raspberry flavor notes, so I went and got Maddie and Millie to go for a ride with me to look for the color red. We found some pomegranates still hanging on their branches. Last years’ apple leaves are turning red. The peach branches are a kind of dark maroon red. And there are still some of last years’ red roses dried on the bushes. February, the color of red!