AHO

As many of you may have heard, we had some pretty nasty weather last week in the Valley. A lot of our farmers were hit pretty hard, a few completely lost their crops, and others are going to have to do some work to recover. The bits of hail were in some cases the same size as the baby fruit hanging on the trees, as you can see in the photo below. Uncle Vern said it was one of the two worst instances of hail that he’s seen over his … Continue reading →

Follow the peach hull road to see the partnership between organic fruit farming, animal husbandry, and ingenuity. The peach hulls in the picture above have seen a lot more of the world of agriculture that you might think. The journey of these seeds started in the orchard. For one reason or another, maybe it was hail, birds, bugs, rot, they weren’t good looking enough to be sold at market, so they became culled peaches. Culled, but far from wasted. The culled peaches belonging to these pits were collected by a … Continue reading →

This week’s box doesn’t have a lot of surprises for you, so instead of expounding on a specific type of vegetable or fruit, we’re going to tell you more about something slightly out of the ordinary you can do with your extra special fresh produce: reduce it to it’s drinkable state. If you haven’t already seen Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, a 2010 independent film following Aussie Joe Cross on a two month juice fast and road trip across the United States, it’s not a surprising spoiler to find out … Continue reading →

Just wanted to get a quick post in while my hands were still sticky from the several shades of  orange and pomelo juice dripping I had down my arms earlier today at Cliff McFarlin’s sixty-five acre organic fruit ranch. Being from flat West Texas, I continue to be just as impressed at how quickly a you can end up in the foothills as I was the first time I drove east from here. We had a nice low cloud cover this morning to lend to the atmosphere.

You won’t have to find a mummified pear to get a taste of what people were eating in the early 1900s. You can find the answer to that question in Dave Mostin’s pear orchard in Lake County. He has trees that are 112 years old and they are still producing healthy sweet tasting pears. No kidding. It’s amazing. The trees themselves don’t look like anything special necessarily, they’re a bit thicker and more hardy looking than their younger companions, but it would be totally possible to walk out in the … Continue reading →

I visited Llano Seco in early December. Not only was the land stunningly beautiful, but the integrity of the hog operation was palpable. Good people running that show, good people who believe in what they are doing and do it well. The full profile of Llano Seco can be viewed at the AHO website here, but here a few of the really notable take away points that AHO subscribers should know (in order to appreciate the taste of that bacon all the more!) 1. A lot of hands on research … Continue reading →

AHO vegetable supplier Rancho Piccolo brings a little flavor of the old country to the Central Valley. Farmer David Silviera grew up in Portugal and the name of his farm, Rancho Piccolo means “small farm” in Italian. It comes out sing-songy every time I think it. RrrrancHO pICcolooo. Try it. It’s fun. The farm was beautiful, shades of greens and purples scattered throughout the fields, mixed with the blue line of the horizon and shared by lots of wide open space. And, going back to the theme of the old … Continue reading →

  I never ate an artichoke until I moved to California. It’s the same for a persimmon. The first time I ever saw one on my friend’s kitchen counter I made an amateur mistake and told her it was the strangest tomato I had ever seen. I’m looking forward to all the persimmon cookies that will be rolling out of the oven once the ones sitting on my counter are mushy enough to bake with. But what inspires this post is something that I’m enjoying about them right now this very … Continue reading →

The first farm I had the chance to visit this year was Highland Organics, a small 5 acre farm next to the foothills near Reedley, California.  It’s been a few weeks since my first visit. I came away with armloads of greens! You can’t help but feel great about your life when you’re eating that many big servings of fresh green plants. Seriously. I even ate some for breakfast a few days the week of Thanksgiving. FARMER VIDEO UPDATE: On my latest visit, Boua and Neng were planting the field with sugar … Continue reading →