Dear CSA Members,
As rain approaches, followed by a dry Thanksgiving Day, we have so much to be thankful for here at Frog Hollow Farm. Actually, every day of the year I give thanks to the beauty of this place. And each of the four seasons has its own kind of beauty. This year the fall brings extraordinary colors to the palette of the farm landscape. Apricot leaves are a buttery yellow with fringes of crimson. The peaches are clad in gold leaves and at sundown they glow with an intensity that evokes a sense of wonder in the soul of the beholder.
The Santa Rosa leaves are almost the color of their fruits, purple-violet, shimmering in the afternoon breeze. And right next to them, the Flavor King pluots have shed all their leaves, revealing the sturdy structure of their scaffold limbs, and the cobweb fingers of fruit wood; quite the contrast to their stately appeal during the Spring and Summer months. One grove of nectarines looks like a copper kettle with a fire burning beneath it. And throughout every row of trees the ground is clad in a carpet of green.
Pruning has begun in earnest, so the “tree team” is very happy knowing that they’ll have steady work for the rest of the year and into 2016. I can hear them laughing and joking as I approach from a distance. And the “ground team” boys are weed-whacking rows of cherry trees, leaving the orchard looking neat and trim! Compost production continues on schedule with six windrows (each windrow is about 70 tons of compost) almost ready to spread, and 4 windrows in various stages of construction. We’ve even had time to clear weeds from about 1/4 mile of storm drain ditches along Highway 4.
Even our winter vegetable garden is “soil-ready” to be planted in onions, garlic, lettuce, kale, and other winter greens. All in all, we’re well-prepared and ready for what we hope will be a record “El Nino” winter!
Best,