Blenheim Apricots Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA A Slow Food Arc of Taste apricot that has been growing in the Santa Clara Valley since the 1900’s. Small in size like our Golden Sweet the Blenheims are prized for their sweet tart flavor and aromatic qualities. A great apricot for preserving, drying, and eating out of hand. Gold Dust Peaches Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA The Gold Dust is one of our favorites and the first outstanding peach of the season for eating out of hand. A delicately fleshed heirloom variety, it is low in acid and smaller than most of our peaches. Its juicy, melting texture and sweetness can hardly be beat. Jade Nectarines Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA White-fleshed nectarines, the Jade’s subtle sweetness and low acidity makes them a great contrast to our early-season yellow peaches. Albion Strawberries Yerena Farm, Watsonville, CA The Albion is a newer variety strawberry developed at UC Davis. It is ever bearing and usually produces fruit June – October in the Bay Area. The sweet flavor and firm flesh makes the Albion an excellent dessert or preserving berry. Strawberry jam or pie anyone? Early Blue Blueberries Riverdance Farms, Livingston, CA As the name implies, the Early Blue is an early variety. They are large and sweet. These are great for cooking, if you don’t eat them all first!

A Note from Sarah

The Magic of Frog Hollow What is it? How does it manifest itself? It shows up all the time in the funniest ways. Here’s one of my memories… It’s late July. About mid afternoon, hawks are gliding on the heat waves and Al and I are out checking the picking and seeing what’s going on with the crews. Of course, we’re driving a golf cart with Farmer Al at the helm. This is our only chance during the busy day to have our “state of the farm” meeting. So Farmer Al stops the golf cart down by the south end of the property, looking North at the grapes, where we can see two of our crews, on flatbed electric carts. As we sit going over who’s done what and who’s going to do what next, we stop talking and sit watching in silence at the scene unfolding before us. One crew is driving backwards, apparently the gear for “front” isn’t functioning, but that doesn’t stop them from continuing their work. The other cart is propelling forward at an alarming speed and heading directly for an end-post in the vineyard. Suddenly the four men riding on the back hop off hanging on to the cart dragging it to a stop just before it hits the post. No brakes. As I sit writing “call mechanic” in my notebook, I smell something burning and notice smoke to my right… the grass under the golf cart Farmer Al and I are sitting on is on fire! Al chuckles and simply moves forward 10 feet saying calmly, “Remind me to take it out of drive when we stop, or we’ll do that again.” I, meanwhile, have hopped off and am busily stamping out the embers. On this day, in spite of all the “wrongs” we managed to do all our normal deliveries that evening. No one was maimed or even wounded in the process! It all turned out “right” in spite of us. The next morning when Farmer Al and I were chatting about the previous day’s activities, I looked at him and said, “I’d say yesterday was a Frog Hollow Farm Day!” There’s no doubt in my mind we had a little magic to help us along the way. In fact, it was days like this one that led Farmer Al to coin the phrase, “the magic of Frog Hollow”. I know it’s actually through his leadership and “can do” attitude no matter what the day brings, we’ll get the job done so you can enjoy the “magic of Frog Hollow Farm” in your own homes, But it’s fun to think there’s also a little magic at play. It’s also good to know that this was more than 20 years ago and through the years we’ve been able to maintain our farm vehicles better! Thank you Karen Johnson!!!