Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Tastes of Spring

~Full Screen: Opens in Separate Window~

Last week we delivered 90# of Meyer Lemons to The Penny Ice Creamery, and then picked the remaining 1150# for Frog Hollow's marmalade, bringing us to a total of 2550# for this year's harvest...not too shabby for 3 year old trees!

Today we harvested our crop of Tango Mandarins, which will be made into marmalade for The Picnic Basket. Tango is a relatively new release from UC Riverside. It is a seedless mutation of the renowned W. Murcott Afourer Moroccan Mandarin. They bought more Washington Navels for their fresh squeezed orange juice too.

In other news, our Genoa Lemons are ripe. Genoa is an heirloom Italian lemon, first brought to California in 1875. It has a zesty rind and classic old-world lemon taste. They are available for local pickup at $2.00/#, and we will be listing them on Local Harvest soon. Our first crop of Xing Xiang Chinese Oranges is nearing maturity as well.

The high pressure ridge over the Gulf of Alaska has persisted in pushing moisture east since our last update. Our first rain in two weeks is falling as I type this. Though our grapes are just leafing out and our Italian prune plums are in full blossom, we welcome it with open hearts.

One final note, the Brekenridge Brewery is currently holding a naming contest for the Belgian whitbier they made with our Buddha's Hand Citrons. You can read about it in the Denver Post (they posted some hilarious photos of the brewing process as well) and can submit your entry here. The winner receives a year's supply of beer and other assorted prizes... must be 21 to enter!