Quick produce note: the end of the season for Arizona grapefruit is in sight. So what does that mean? Well, it means that this fruit has been sitting on the trees for several months soaking up the rain and sunshine that the desert has enjoyed this spring. And as grapefruit relax on the trees, the acids turn into sweet sugars.
So if you like to make the tequila face when you eat a grapefruit, these guys are not for you. But for me, the increased sugars with just a hint of that acid bite is my Goldilocks zone. I encourage everyone to put away those grapefruit spoons and eat these guys like you would an orange. Peel and scarf. We should have them for 2/3 more weeks. Enjoy.
Second note is that the desert grapes from the border of Arizona and California are kicking into gear right now. These are some of my favorite grapes because the intense heat of the desert make for a very sweet grape that is not diluted down with a bunch of water. You will really like these grapes I think. I know I do.
Last produce note since I am on a roll, the California drought. I have noticed something this year that has been different than seasons past with the early season California nectarines and strawberries, they are amazing. Now they usually are pretty good, I will give them that. But this year has been exceptional, why?
I was recently talking to a friend of mine who is neck deep in the produce world in California and mentioned the quality of the fruit to her. Her take is that since water is more scarce, growers are forced to use less water. Makes sense. When that happens, the trees will put out smaller fruit but with more intense flavors.
As a visual, picture it like this. A tree is a giant solar panel with all of its leaves collecting energy. All of that energy is stored in batteries that we like to call fruit. So when the tree does not have a lot of water to grow bigger fruit (batteries), the tree stores the same amount of energy in a smaller fruit. Therefore the fruit has a smaller size, but it has all of the flavor and less water of the larger fruit.
So when we look for fruit for you (and ourselves), we never want the giant fruit. The giant fruit has usually been pumped with water that increases the yield for the grower, but dilutes the flavors for the consumer. Rule of thumb amigos, in the produce world, size does matter. You will be happier eating more of the smaller fruit than the larger. Additionally, since the general public thinks that the bigger the fruit the better, the price is higher on the larger fruit.
Lastly this week, early June marks the 12th anniversary of our CSA launch. Because I love birthdays, I always look at the farm as having 2 a year. One is the first week of March when we broke ground at the Los Poblanos Ranch. And the second is June 6th, 2003 when we launched a new model and a new way of looking at the local food system. Although this model had been proven in other states, it was the first of its kind in New Mexico.
Launching the farm was definitely a test to see what we could grow here in ABQ. But honestly, it was much larger than that. It was a test of the community to see if they would support a small farm with so many existing options for natural and Organic food in place. Fortunately, 13 months into the start of the farm, that question was answered and I knew that I would not need a “day job” in order to make this farm succeed.
The final test of this new collaborative model was to find and grow our network of partners. This was not and still is not easy to do. There is a sense that as a person or business we grow from being a dependent and then hopefully become independent. At that point, many feel like you have “made it.” That there is nothing greater than independence.
We broke that myopic perspective and realized that the greatest thing to aspire to is actually co-dependence. We need partners and they need us. In this codependent model, an amazing symbiosis occurs. We are better as a group than we could ever be alone. This is a liberating place to find yourself. You don’t have to be everything to everyone. And this goal never ends, always growing and getting better.
Farmer Monte