{"id":1574,"date":"2012-07-24T21:53:14","date_gmt":"2012-07-24T21:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/?p=1574"},"modified":"2012-07-24T21:53:14","modified_gmt":"2012-07-24T21:53:14","slug":"farm-focus-varieties-part-1-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/farm-focus-varieties-part-1-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Farm Focus: Varieties Part 1 of 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\nAs members of our CSA, we know you value superior flavor. In order to ensure we are enjoying the sweetest and most delicious fruit around, Farmer Al is extremely\ncareful about every aspect of fruit production. You have to start\nwith a good variety to have a good tasting fruit and he makes sure the varieties\nthat are planted in the orchard show real promise for being outstanding.\n\nAs you have probably noticed, each variety has its own flavor, texture, and, to\na trained eye, appearance. This season we have been treated to two delicious\nheirloom varieties \u2013 the Suncrest Peaches and the Ruby Grand Nectarines.\nHeirloom varieties are prized for their flavor and melting texture. A benefit of\nbeing a CSA member is that we are able to experience these varieties.\nHeirloom stone fruit is largely inaccessible to the public, since they are not able to\nwithstand the commercial post harvest handling conditions associated with\nretail markets.\n\nThe resurgence of farmers markets and the increasing popularity of CSA\u2019s is\nin large part due to the consumers desire to taste food that tastes delicious.\nFarmers who didn\u2019t want any part of growing varieties that were devoid of the\nnuances and delights of a really good piece of fruit said no to growing for large\nwholesale markets, and to the fruits that were bred for them. The varieties\ngrown for commercial markets were bred to be very productive, firm, large,\nuniform in color, and of course, able to be stored and shipped. Instead, some\nfarmers opted to try to make a living outside of the industry standard and\nconnect directly to consumers by offering them something different - superior\nflavor and an opportunity to interface on a personal level. Twenty years ago\nthese farmers were the outliers, and Farmer Al was one of them.\nRobert Woolley from Dave Wilson Nursery, our main provider of new trees,\ntells me that today the industry has come full circle. Large commercial\ngrowers are concerned about flavor and are seeking varieties that not only can be\nstored and shipped, but that actually taste good too. This newfound concern\nfor flavor is largely due to the consumers demand for it. I found this piece of\ninformation heartening as confirmation that as consumers, we do have power\nto change the food system.\n\nBoth Robert Woolley and Farmer Al (and fruit lovers around the world)\ngive great thanks to Floyd Zaiger and his family for their work in developing new varieties\nthat taste as good as some of our favorite heirlooms. Zaiger\ndeveloped both the Zee Lady peaches and the Dapple Dandy pluots that are\ncoming soon, so look out for them and see what you think.\n\nThe work that Robert Woolley and his crew at Dave Wilson Nursery are doing to test new varieties for commercial, direct market, and home gardening\nchannels is both fascinating and influential to the fruit industry. His work will\nbe the topic of next weeks Farm Focus, so stay tuned.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As members of our CSA, we know you value superior flavor. In order to ensure we are enjoying the sweetest and most delicious fruit around, Farmer Al is extremely careful about every aspect of fruit production. You have to start with a good variety to have a good tasting fruit and he makes sure the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5HwAU-po","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}