Sounds of Spring

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Nearly a month of high pressure has brought the tree frogs out of hibernation. Our nights are filled with their joyful chorus. Unfortunately, temps in the mid-seventies don't correlate with very much precipitation. Our rain gauge sits at 23.21" for the year. Hopefully el niño finds some legs come March...

The warm weather has accelerated our citrus season, and our last variety of mandarins, Gold Nugget, went out this week. They were splendiforous this year! Earlier we had a bumper crop of Moro Blood Oranges, which went to The Penny and Manresa Bread. Some absolutely beautiful Cara Cara Navels went to the same locations as well as Ristorante Avanti. Jincheng oranges and Tango tangerines were all spoken for by Frog Hollow's Happy Child CSA.

The folks from FOOD, What?! came up following the harvest, as they have for the past three years, to glean tangerines and mandarins for their recruiting trips South County schools. We wish them and their youth crew continued success. As such, it was a bit of a struggle to pull together enough fruit for the tasting at tomorrow's UCSC Citrus Class. Pucker up, folks! It's lime vs. lime... lemons and mandarins too!

Here's to many mating frogs and a wet spring!

(In Memory of) Hope

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2016 continues to deliver at a graceful and hope-filled pace. Rolling rainstorms give way to sun-speckled harvest windows. Our rain gauge sits at 16.74" (with more storms on track).

We've delivered over 4000# of citrus so far this month, and there's plenty more in the pipeline. Many thanks to Robert Mann Packaging for running off another pallet of 1 1/9th bushel boxes for us in a hurry last week!

Right now, 500# of Washington Navel Oranges sit picked and packed alongside 1250# of Meyer Lemons in our storage room. The final third of the Meyer Lemon Harvest will happen next week. "Tango" and "Gold Nugget" Mandarins, Jincheng Sweet Oranges, and Moro Blood Oranges are all on deck.

Surrounded by so many blessings, it was with sadness that we marked the passing of our dear friend Hope last week. In her memory, we have planted the grandest of palms: Jubaea chilensis, the Chilean Wine Palm. We're already looking forward to enjoying coquito nuts... twenty years from now! ***Much gratitude to Sal at All Tropical Palms for procuring our vigorous specimen.

[~~~Update 24 hrs later-- 1.91" fell today, 18.65"ytd!~~~]

All That The Rain Promises, And More...

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After a cold, dry week, our rain has returned. 1.18" have fallen so far today, bringing us to 10.08" year to date, and it's still pounding the windowpanes as I type!

Fortunately, it paused just long enough today for me to harvest 400# of postcard-perfect Algerian "Clementine" Tangerines for Frog Hollow's Happy Child CSA this morning. They have already enjoyed Page Tangelos and Owari Satsuma Mandarins. Next week, we will begin our Meyer Lemon harvest for their marmalade.

We had a cheerful and productive holiday season. Our final order of the year was filled for Ristorante Avanti on New Year's Eve and included Buddha Hand Citrons, Yuzus, Bergamot Sour Oranges, Meyer Lemons, Bearss Limes, Owari Satsuma Mandarins and Hayward Kiwis.

We are grateful for El Niño's atmospheric flow. It sure is fun to see storms stacked up back to back out past Hawaii! Thanks for reading, and wishing you all the best in 2016!!

[~~~Storm Update--01.07.16, 08:01 PM-- 4.52", 13.42"ytd!~~~]

Absolute Nirvana

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Our Buddha Hand Citrons are making quite a splash on the cocktail menu at Ristorante Avanti these days. Be sure to ask for "Nirvana" to get a taste!!

After a big Halloween run, another hundred pounds of Persian Banana Pumpkins are available in ice cream form at The Penny Ice Creamery. They bought in more Fuyu persimmons as well.

And Happy Child CSA members can look forward to some of the most beautiful pomegranates we've ever grown in their boxes next week. We cut the water off on them over a month ago, and they have ripened perfectly!!

On the citrus front, it's looking to be a BIG year! Everything set early last year due to the balmy "winter" we had, so lemons and mandarins are months ahead of schedule.

Other than that, we've finished splitting wood and tuning our generator. Now we await El Niño and his magic! We're up to 2.53" on the rain gauge year to date. Our thirsty landscaping has truly appreciated the drink and is rewarding us--and the bees--with beautiful flowers! The above slideshow is definitely worth putting into full screen (box of arrows in bottom right hand corner)!

Golden Fruit and Liquid Gold

We harvested the first round of absolutely beautiful Fuyu Persimmons this morning. The exciting part of the story is that all happened in the middle of a riotous downpour!

We finally had the first bands of rain in a long, long while drop down over us from the Gulf of Alaska. The rain gauge reads 1.18" on the day, 1.52" on the year! Our irrigation systems are 100% shut down at this point. Hopefully more rain follows soon, and they can stay that way...

p.s.--> My new favorite weather website is windyty. I have added it to the weather links in the right-hand sidebar of this page.