A rain disaster

Well, the apricot crop that we have nurtured for so many months suffered a major blow on Tuesday June 28th in the form of 1.3" of rare June rainfall. The result is lots of splitting as the ripening fruit absorbed the water and swelled. And with fungus and mold problems already prevalent from our very wet spring, we expect to lose lots to rot. And what we do pick cannot be trusted to have much of a shelf life.

Splits in apricot skin allow mold and fungus

So now with half the crop still on the trees we're in salvage mode, trying to put some of the fruit to good use while disposing of moldy fruit before it spreads its evil spawn.

So canners and jammers, sharpen your paring knives as now is your chance to pick up some bargain fruit.

It's first come, first served, but hurry since the heat wave coming in the next few days will complete a one-two punch on this year's cot crop. And this, folks, is why so many apricot orchards have been torn out over the years.

Apricots are here, time to eat and make jam!

At last, the apricots are beginning to ripen. We have started picking and should have fruit for approximately two weeks. We have lots of orders for apricots and a smaller-than-usual crop, so do call ahead before driving up here to be sure we have what you want. Phone 707-448-4792.

We ran out of our 2010 apricot jam very early this winter. The recipe was new to us and was intriguing because it used both the apricot flesh and the kernel found inside the pit. The full recipe can be found in Chez Panisse Fruit by the incomparable Alice Waters on page 25. This recipe alone is worth the price of the book; but any fruit lover will find dozens of delicious ideas inside as you work your way alphabetically through the crops, one chapter at a time, from Apples to Strawberries. Buy this book!

Alice uses just four simple ingredients for her jam: apricots, sugar, a few apricot kernels (called noyaux) and lemon juice. We followed the recipe as written except that we reduced the amount of sugar to suit our taste. That yielded us a softer jam; it was more the texture of a thick sauce. We loved it on pancakes, toast, and ice cream. Four thumbs up, our highest praise!

Another version of apricot jam, using similar techniques but not calling for cot kernels, is available in Fanny at Chez Panisse: A Child’s Restaurant Adventures with 46 Recipes, written by Alice Waters, Bob Carrau and Patricia Curtan.

Not all fruit is born perfect; Mother Nature likes variety and is apparently bored by sameness. This spring's weather was unusually wet and the result is lots of scarred fruit. We sort our crops  into three categories. Our #1 grade is the most perfect, with the best size and appearance. The #2 grade has some skin blemishes and oddly-shaped fruits. The #3 grade are the culls; they include over-ripes, bird pecked and insect-damaged fruit. To be frugal and use the harvest to the fullest, we try to find good homes for all our fruit.

Here on the farm, we use a lot of culls for jam making, drying, freezing and baking. This year, for instance, most of our apricots have some shot hole fungus because of the late rains. The taste of the fruit is unaffected but the tongue feel of these “freckles” may not be suitable in all dishes. Over the years we have found it wise to have sharp knives in the kitchen and use them well. I love the fruit that is picked dead-ripe off the tree and am willing to cut my way through lots of culls to get those soft, succulent apricots for my jam.

One final story from a woman who lives in Italy and shops the farmers markets there: At Italian outdoor markets, a customer tells the seller how many fruits she wants and the farmer selects them. If she requests three fruits, she gets one perfect, one somewhat blemished, and one ugly. That way all produce is put to good use instead of ending up discarded. Seems an admirable custom given that in our country almost half our food is wasted.

Harvest update June 18th

Peaches are going, going, almost gone. We've had the shortest peach season ever, and expect to do the seventh and last picking tomorrow, Sunday 6-19. Most #1 and #2 grade peaches are sold or spoken for, but for jam makers or bakers we will have cull peaches available until probably June 21st. These are undersized or damaged fruit best for processing uses where some sugar is added.

Cots are still mostly green(!) so it looks like picking won't begin until maybe June 24th or so. And due to extremely wet and cool weather this winter & spring, the crop is much lighter than in recent years and has a fair amount of fungus damage. So for our longtime customers we will do our best to get you some cots but unfortunately cannot make any promises at this point.

Finally, signs of ripening!

It's been an unusual year so far, with almost continuous below normal temperatures. As a result some of the fruit is very late in ripening. Surprisingly, we were still using the wood stove just a week ago when most years we would be needing to cool the house starting in May. But at last we're seeing some progress.

Peaches are coloring up nicely and we are just doing the very first picking here on June 12th, not much later than usual. The first few to ripen are always "seconds", with split pits or other imperfections. But we expect to have good supplies of quality Springcrest peaches starting around June 15 - 18.

The apricots are another story though, still mostly green and hard. We don't expect to be picking many until around June 20th or later. Just a few are starting to get a tiny bit of orange color, about what you would find advertised at Safeway as "Ripe Summer Fruit!" But we insist on letting fruit ripen on the tree as far as possible, picking when it is just a couple of days from dead ripe. We lose some to wind, rot, and birds that way, but the taste difference is night and day compared to fruit picked too green.

Frequent spring rains keep fungus spores active, so this year we expect to lose more fruit to brown rot, a nasty fungus that can spread quickly over a fruit both before and after harvest. So the fruits' keeping quality will probably suffer a bit. This year the apricots also have much more "shothole fungus," those freckles visible in the picture above. This is mainly just a cosmetic problem though, and after all who among us is completely free from a few warts and moles?

Santa Rosa plums will be later than usual as well, probably starting around the end of June. Please bear in mind that these dates are just rough estimates; hot weather can and often does fool us. So check back here often during the season for updates and feel free to call with your specific needs. We won't be setting up the fruit stand outside the gate until we have cots in good supply, but are happy to take specific orders for fruit ahead of time for customer pickup. Call us at 707-448-4792, or email to fern@spurlocktools.com.

While we wait for the fruit to ripen we're busy setting up our famous bird scare machines, a variety of home built contraptions that limit bird damage and amuse passersby. This photo shows one device in action, with flying plastic bottles tethered to gyrating ropes. An electric motor drives the system and is controlled by an intermittent timer. Videos of the machines in action can be found here: http://billspurlock.myphotoalbum.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album03

Follow the link and click on "slideshow." Don't laugh, they work!

Fruit Thinning

We've just about finished the tedious task of thinning excess fruit from the trees. Thinning is a vital step in fruit tree care that many backyard gardeners neglect, while others may not realize that it should be done at all. But given the right growing conditions most stone fruit trees will set far more fruit than they can support. Unless much of the excess is removed, both fruit quality and tree health will suffer. Trees that typically need thinning are apricots, peaches, plums, pears and apples. Cherries, figs, persimmons and citrus usually do not.

Here are the benefits of thinning:

• Thinning matches the tree's energy with the amount of fruit it has to nourish. A tree has only so much carbohydrate stored in its roots, so when too many fruits compete for this nourishment they all end up small and flavorless.
• Thinning reduces disease and insect damage. Crowded clumps of fruit offer hiding places for damaging insects, which can then damage all the fruits in a group. Crowded fruits also stay wet longer in damp weather, encouraging mold and fungus problems that can quickly infect all adjacent fruit.
• Excess fruit weighs down branches, especially when trees are not adequately pruned. This often leads to broken limbs.
• Crowding shields fruit from sunlight, decreasing fruit color and flavor.
• Thinning is an opportunity to remove smaller, deformed or damaged fruit so more of the tree's energy can go into the remaining perfect fruit.

As we admire small green fruits early in the season and dream of biting into a ripe peach or apricot later on, it can be really hard to pull fruit off. But as with pruning, this is not a time to be squeamish. Apricots should be left no closer than 3-4" apart, and peaches no closer than 6-8". Fruit at the ends of long branches should be thinned even more heavily to avoid breakage in a wind storm. On a heavy year we will often need to remove 90% of the fruit from a tree, leaving the ground littered almost solid with small green fruits.


Apricots before thinning . . .



Timing of thinning is important too. Most trees will self-thin to some degree; at an early stage some fruits will yellow and drop off on their own, so it is important to wait for this to happen before manually thinning. But once that happens we like to thin right away, so the remaining fruit will get the most benefit. Leaving too much fruit on also starves the tree which then reduces next year's crop, so it is always better to thin more, not less!



and after the first thinning

 Thinning can be done by knocking with sticks, but we prefer doing it by hand. It's a lot more work, but gives us much better control and hence more benefit. Ideally the smallest fruit should be removed in favor of the largest.


Peaches before thinning . . .



We will typically thin twice, the first time leaving a few too many to cover our bases in case a bad hail storm or wind should damage much of the fruit. Then after 2-3 weeks when the fruit has sized up a bit more we go back and get more agressive.

and after the first thinning

The pictures at right show a typical before and after first-thinning look at cots and peaches. The second thinning will remove even more fruit. It hurts to do it, but always pays off in fruit size and quality. After 40 years I don't remember ever thinking we thinned to heavily.

Birds of Spring

Male Bullocks Oriole

This time of year the air is a symphony of bird sounds as mating season gets into full swing. Whether calling to a mate, announcing their territory, or just singing for the fun of it, birds are especially vocal right now and are a joy to watch and photograph.

We tend to put birds into categories based mainly upon their diet:

• Birds of prey (hawks and owls) get a totally positive rating for their service eating varmints.
• Insectivores and seed eaters (various flycatchers, doves, goldfinches, quail, robins and hummingbirds) get a positive rating for eating insects or seeds and mostly avoiding orchard fruit.
• Voracious fruit eaters (blue Jays, orioles, house finches, starlings, sparrows) get either a mixed or negative rating due to bad manners, eating too much fruit, and generally being a pest. Of course not all birds are necessarily completely good or bad. Our Bullocks orioles are about the most dramatically colored birds around and always a treat to watch, but I'd like them better if they didn't eat our fruit.

A barn owl peeks out of his home

Owls are some of our favorites, especially barn owls. These beautiful creatures have our undying gratitude for solving our serious gopher problem some years ago. Barn owls nest only in cavities (hollow trees, old buildings, or man made nest boxes) so several years ago I installed several boxes on our property and around the area to entice more owls to settle here.

Seven young barn owls in their nest box

Now we enjoy the comforting sounds of barn owls at night year-round, knowing they are on the job keeping rodent pests in check. You can see more of our owl photos in this post.

Besides barn owls, great horned owls, screech owls, and burrowing owls inhabit the neighborhood. And a variety of hawks take over varmint hunting duties during the day.





A male bluebird sits outside a nest box

Western bluebirds and tree swallow populations are also increased by nest boxes. We have several boxes around the orchard that house nesting pairs every year. Both birds eat mainly insects, or small wild berries in winter.



A bluebird enjoys a drink from the birdbath

As we have encouraged beneficial birds with nest boxes, bird baths and a diversity of food sources, we've noticed an increase in their numbers compared to pest birds. But we still have plenty of fruit eaters that require elaborate bird scare contraptions during harvest season - more on that when the time comes. In the meantime we're just enjoying the sights and sounds of our feathered friends.




A goldfinch frolics in the bath

Acorn woodpecker

A dove sits patiently in her nest

Promoting Balance in the Orchard

It is now early April and we're nearing the end of a very wet rainy season. The cover crop on the orchard floor has flourished, growing tall and dense. Starting in early winter the thick growth of bell beans, vetch, field peas and mustard helped to capture rain runoff and prevented erosion.


Once in the bloom phase the cover crop has attracted and nourished many types of beneficial insects which help keep harmful pests in check.

Just about any flowering plant will attract insects and other creatures both good and bad. The key to natural pest control is to promote a diverse biological environment so natural predators can help keep harmful insects and animals in check. In the photo at left a bell bean plant is infested with black aphids. These aphids do not attack fruit trees, but they do attract lots of green lacewings and lady bugs, which are then present to control the green aphid that does infest fruit trees. And sure enough this plant is covered with dozens of lady bugs and their larvae (the larvae are the alligator like creatures).

Another benefit of a good cover crop is natural soil fertility. Besides mining the soil for deep minerals, the legumes in the mix have the wonderful ability to add nitrogen to the soil. So called nitrogen fixing bacteria in the soil colonize the roots, forming the white nodules shown at right. These bacteria live in a symbiotic relationship with the plant, capturing nitrogen from the air. When the plant dies, excess nitrogen is then available for other crops, in this case the fruit trees.

But as the rainy season ends it is time to conserve as much soil moisture as possible to see the trees through the dry months ahead. So I've just mowed down the cover crop to stop it from drinking up any more of winter's rainfall. I use a flail mower which chops the growth into a uniform layer of mulch. This residue will soon dry to a straw color, reflecting sunlight and keeping the tree roots cool while reducing evaporation from the soil surface. The decaying roots and mulch will now be digested back into the soil in nature's continual process of cycling nutrients from plant to soil to plant again.