This week feels like the end of a long marathon — the solar panels are installed on the barn, the first soil moisture sensors are up at the farm and the graywater system is set up where we wash our crates! We are excited about anything we can do to save water and energy, though our water use isn’t what is going to break the groundwater bank. We have our fingers crossed that the well will last to the end of the season — although the groundwater has plunged this year, it actually doesn’t look as bad as last year’s level which in our area got to around 200 ft.
The fruit picking marathon is still going strong, and all the fruit has been ripening much earlier than usual. I think it’s due to climate change, personally — the warm spring I think made a lot of the fruit varieties change their ripening patterns and so we don’t have the normal staggering we’ve seen in other years. But it could also be due to our watering schedule — we try to stress the trees just a little bit with under-watering, and that could be making the fruit ripen earlier as well.
We have had some beautiful and tasty peaches this year! I just sampled the fruit in San Francisco this weekend in front of the Bi-Rite store. It was very gratifying to hear from so many people how tasty our peaches are! A lot of times we are picking and packing the fruit as fast as we possibly can, so it is nice to hear the feedback of our customers! And also to carefully savor a section of peach as carefully as you would a square of chocolate. Each peach is perfect in it’s own way — look at this awesome peach with a whale and a sunset that you could be so lucky to buy!
We also have a farm tour this Saturday with Slow Food Yolo. We’re going to bring out the hand-cranked ice cream maker to make some slow and salt-chilled peach ice cream. And then we will have Shelly’s peach crisp as well and a farm tour where you can try the peaches straight from the tree. See the flyer below for more details. Yum!
