{"id":4422,"date":"2015-05-11T22:29:48","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T22:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/?p=4422"},"modified":"2015-05-11T22:29:48","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T22:29:48","slug":"fruit-and-news-of-the-week-may-11th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/fruit-and-news-of-the-week-may-11th\/","title":{"rendered":"Fruit and News of the Week: May 11th"},"content":{"rendered":"

THIS WEEK'S FRUIT<\/h3>\nKettleman Apricots<\/strong>\n\nFrog Hollow Farm Named after the California town near where this apricot variety was\u00a0bred and tested, the Kettleman has a hint of tartness that apricot fans\u00a0love along with a beautiful aroma. It is smooth-textured and delightfully\u00a0sweet.\n\nAlbion Strawberries<\/strong>\n\nJW Farms, Watsonville, CA<\/em>\n\nThe Albion is a newer variety strawberry developed at UC Davis. Straw- berries are early this year! The sweet flavor and firm flesh makes the Albion an excellent dessert or preserving berry.\n\nHayward Kiwis<\/strong>\n\nChiechi Farm, Live Oak, CA<\/em>\n\nOriginally known as the Chinese gooseberry due to its Chinese origins.\u00a0Hawyward Wright, a New Zealand nurseryman propagated his plants by\u00a0grafting, and they eventually became the preferred cultivar of growers due to\u00a0their sweet flavor and thin skin.\n\nHass Avocados<\/strong>\n\nEco Farm, Temecula, CA<\/em>\n\nCreamy in texture, nutty in flavor, with a small to medium seed. The Hass skin\u00a0is easy to peel and darkens from green to purplish-black as it ripens\n\nNavel Oranges <\/strong>\n\nPurity Organic, Kerman, CA <\/em>\n\nCalifornia Navel Oranges are considered to be the best Navels for eating out of\u00a0hand. They have a thick skin that is easy to peel, are seedless and have a meaty\u00a0make them great for out of hand eating too.\n\n\u00a0Ruby Grapefruit <\/strong>\n\nSundance Organic, Oceanside, CA<\/em>\n\nThe Grapefruit is said to cross between the Jamaican sweet orange and the Indonesian pomelo, first documented in 1750. Ruby grapefruit was an accidental\u00a0discovery of a red fruit growing on a pink grapefruit tree.\n\nValencia Oranges<\/strong>\n\nPleasant Valley Ranch, Springville, CA <\/em>\n\nValencia Oranges are known for their very sweet tasting and brightly colored\u00a0juice. They are one of the most popular varieties used for bottled juices because\u00a0of this. Their sweet, bright flavor and minimal seed content (1-6 per orange)\u00a0and sweet flesh that makes them a perfect snack.\n

A NOTE FROM MARLENE<\/span><\/h3>\n\"Screen<\/a>\n\nThings are picking up quickly on the farm these days. The long spring days\u00a0and warm, even hot, weather are making things grow faster and requiring\u00a0more water to make sure seedlings don\u2019t dry out. We have thousands of veggie\u00a0plants, about half of which have gone into the ground in the last couple weeks.\n\nLast summer, we had about an acre of peppers and tomatoes. This year, we\u2019ve\u00a0doubled that. It\u2019s been a challenge to figure out how to maximize our space\u00a0within our tiny greenhouse and our makeshift hoop house to accommodate all\u00a0these plants. We\u2019ve also increased our diversity in the field, adding in flowers,\u00a0melons, and squash.\n\nIn preparation for transplanting, we\u2019ve been improving our set up in the field.\u00a0Christophe had been monitoring for several months a special compost pile\u00a0which had been made specifically for the vegetables. This balance of ingredients helped to give the compost a more bacterially dominate environment.Unlike the fruit trees which prefer a fungal dominate compost, most vegetables prefer a bacterially dominate one. These beneficial bacteria are symbiotic\u00a0with the vegetables and help them absorb nutrients from the soil. Additionally,\u00a0the compost helps to build a healthy soil ecosystem for years to come through\u00a0the slow release of nutrients and support of habitat and food for microorganisms.\n\nAfter we put the compost out, we laid out our drip irrigation and a heavy\u00a0paper mulch. The compost and the mulch will help the water spread over a\u00a0greater area and retain moisture. Then Kristin and I measured out where each\u00a0plant will go and marked it on the paper. A small hole was cut through the\u00a0paper where the transplant will go and a hole dug. One of Al\u2019s friends is a\u00a0tomato growing expert, and we picked up a useful tip from him: fill the hole\u00a0you\u2019ve dug with water so that the ground around the transplant is totally saturated, keeping the plant from any stress of under watering and making the soil\u00a0more welcoming for root establishment.\n\nThe field is already filling up with big red slicing tomatoes, a sweet early girl\u00a0variety, and classic heirlooms like purple cherokee. We\u2019ve got more jalape\u00f1os,\u00a0anchos, and sweet peppers coming too. In the kitchen, Anna is gearing up\u00a0to start test recipes before she is swimming in tomatoes. Right now, she is\u00a0dreaming of salsas, hot sauces, and roasted peppers. I can\u2019t wait for her to start\u00a0cooking, so I can be a taste tester! We look forward to sharing our tomatoes\u00a0and new products with our CSA members.\n\nSoon the fruits of our labor will be apparent!","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THIS WEEK’S FRUIT Kettleman Apricots Frog Hollow Farm Named after the California town near where this apricot variety was\u00a0bred and tested, the Kettleman has a hint of tartness that apricot fans\u00a0love along with a beautiful aroma. It is smooth-textured and delightfully\u00a0sweet. Albion Strawberries JW Farms, Watsonville, CA The Albion is a newer variety strawberry developed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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-4422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5HwAU-19k","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422","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=4422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}