Today Sasha and I sat with a box of newest apricots to come on the scene: the Royal Blenheims. We carefully inspected them for color, taste, and texture in order to determine what they look like when they are ripe enough to eat, when they are overripe, and when they are immature. It only took about 10 of them, and it was a delicious experience. We learned that the Blenheims are tastiest when they have a bit of green on them. If they are completely orange, they start to get a bit smushy or mealy and then lose their flavor. If they are mostly green, they are hard and too tart. So the apricots that we will put into your baskets and sell at the farmstand will have good orange/yellow coloring on the “shoulders”, but there will also be some green on there somewhere.
After the farm I came home and looked up more information on Blenheims and turns out, we aren’t the first to discover this!
“The Blenheim is both sweet and tart with an intensely aromatic scent of honeysuckle. The apricot ripens from the inside out causing fruit pickers to develop specific harvesting habits for the apricot that included picking fruits that still had a faint green tinge.”
http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/programs/ark_product_detail/blenheim_apricot/
Just wanted to make sure you all knew we were giving you green fruit for a reason.
The other exciting thing that happened on the farm today is that we were filmed for America’s Heartland, a TV Series on PBS. Many thanks to Liya Schwartzman of California FarmLink for suggesting The Cloverleaf’s collaboration with Rich as a land-linking success story. For those of you that don’t already know this story, California FarmLink helps prospective farmers find land, and land owners find farmers. Emma and Sasha went through FarmLink last year to find Rich Collins and Bridgeway Farms.
At this weekend’s filming, we each interviewed with the crew for about 15 minutes. They also filmed us doing our thing on the farm, which included picking apricots, pounding tomato stakes, setting up the farmstand and selling to customers. It was nerve-wracking for each of us to be in front of the camera, but it was also fun. Luckily, none of us knew at the time that this show has 1 million viewers! We will let you all know when it’s going to be aired. We always knew that farming would be our ticket to fame and fortune! 😉
-Marisa