Farmer Monte's Journal

The Scoop from the Farm

  • Home
  • Featured Articles
  • All Articles
  • Visit Our Store
  • Recipe Ideas

Archives for January 2019

Winter Produce Report

January 26, 2019 by monte Leave a Comment

I would love to take a brief second here to look at how the winter crop production is shaping up. Seeing as how we are about half way through this winter season, it is a good time to take notes on where we are going and where we have been.

Greens. This has been a very good winter season for greens. Greens are not huge fans of major temperature swings, so protected winter growing is always preferable to the manic days of a New Mexican spring or hot summer. Look for lettuces, chard/kale, salad, and spinach to continue to be strong here for the next couple of months.

Apples. We are still enjoying some of the incredible fruits from Excelsior Orchard in Paonia, CO. As you have probably noticed, the apples have just been getting sweeter and sweeter. As we hold them in cold storage, the sugars continue to develop and intensify in the fruit. So any little bit of acid melts away and you are left with super tasting winter apples. You honestly cannot get apples with this kind of flavor before heading into the New Year. They need time to mature.

We will continue to have Paul’s apples hopefully into early March. But he also has pressed some apples and pears into Ciders for us. After pressing them, we freeze them so that we do not need to pasteurize or add any preservatives to them. After you get them thawed out, you will have about 2 weeks to drink them before they will start to ferment in your fridge.

If they do ferment a little bit, they are not bad. So please do not throw them out. They will have just a slight bit of alcohol in them. All grapes, pears, and apples contain a natural yeast on their skins. So if you do not pasteurize them, the yeast can start eating up the sugar and, viola, you get hard cider. Thank you Johnny Appleseed for all of your hard work. Look for these ciders in the Harvest Boxes.

Citrus. You cannot even talk about winter food production without mentioning (or thinking about) citrus. We have such an amazing group of citrus growers in Arizona that keep us flooded with these wonderful bits of sunshine throughout the winter months. It has been 8 years of working with them and seems to just keep getting better every single year.

Valencia oranges will start a transition into a variety called Arizona Sweets. They are like a Valencia, but just a bit sweeter and less acid. Those will start next week. The Navel oranges are also about a week out. We will highlight both of those fruit varieties in next week’s offering.

Lemons and Limes have been as consistent as the sunrise. And look for the Grapefruit to begin their transition as well into a sweeter less acidic fruit. The longer the grapefruit sit on the trees soaking up the Arizona sun and cool nights, the acid mellows out and becomes a lot sweeter. So good for those of you who love sweetness and not so good if you love your grapefruit with a strong bite. Overall just the best time of year to be enjoying our regional citrus program.

And a little citrus fact for you to chew on (pun most definitely intended). Most produce distributors come out of California, the Salad Bowl of the United States. California will not accept Arizona grown citrus into the state to protect their industry. What happens then is that all of the fruit that comes into NM is grown in CA because the distributors for grocery stores come out of CA. So AZ citrus is almost impossible to find.

California has great citrus, but I personally don’t think that it is as good as our neighbors to the west. And I can promise you that it is not as fresh. You are getting fruit that is less than a week off the trees. No other store can give you that. So enjoy the incredible varieties and flavors that we have to bring you this winter.

Lastly, our Local Pasture-Raised Meats. As I’ve mentioned before, I love produce. This farm was built and remains rooted in plants. But we have had some fantastic ranch partners come to the table with their locally raised meats. This pastured-meat program that we have put together for you has taken the better part of a decade to fill up. But I think that we are finally getting to a great spot. 2019 you will see better cuts and types of meat than we have ever had available. Right now check out the Virgin Farms Lamb. Raised in ABQ’s South Valley. Truly the best lamb I have ever had and I know you’ll agree.

Enjoy amigos, Farmer Monte

Filed Under: Newsletter

Sign up for our newsletter!

Featured Video

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • November 2019
  • September 2019
  • July 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014

Copyright © 2021 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in