A number of the apples sampled at our 77 variety apple tasting in 2018 would be unfamiliar even to knowledgeable apple growers. These are local discoveries and novel varieties from nearby breeding projects, many of which exist only as a single tree each. All of these apples have distinguished themselves in one way or another over their years of existence, enough so to earn a place at our tasting tables, where several of them have performed quite well among the stiff competition. Freddy Menge, grower of a preponderance of the apples at our tasting, has offered some comments on these novel apples which I thought were worthy of pulling aside and illustrating on their own. —Andy Moskowitz
Freddy Menge, with a mouthful of redflesh, in his Santa Cruz County orchard of high flavor heirloom and novel apples.
Rankings and images of all 77 varieties from the 2018 Monterey Bay CRFG Apple Tasting at conclusion.
The taste for apples is strong: this annual apple tasting, our thirty-somethingth, was one of our best-attended to date, with around 500 tasters. Look for scionwood of many of these heirloom and novel varieties at our upcoming scion exchange. Update: Read some additional notes on the novel, locally bred varieties sampled at this tasting. Update 2:See the video filmed at our 2018 tasting.
Story by Freddy Menge, Photos by Andy Moskowitz.
The Monterey Bay Chapter of the CRFG couldn’t ask for a better climate for growing apples. Thanks to our cool, coastal summers and extra-long growing-season, in the right micro-climate we can produce just about any apple variety worth cultivating. Our annual, late fall apple tasting at Santa Cruz’s Wilder Ranch has proven to be a perfect match of timing and location. Continue reading “Tasting 77 California-Grown Apple Varieties”
This article is a companion piece to the Eating of Persimmons, published on the Birdsong Orchards farm blog here.
Four years ago, in the winter of 2014/2015, we planted around forty persimmon trees in our orchard. Most have thrived, a few have died, a few more have been planted, and I have learned a few things along the way. I cannot claim to be a master of persimmon horticulture, for my trees are still young and have many years of growing to do, but I’d like to share what I know.
Below are some lesser known and underrated fruits that you may find worth growing in California. Indeed, depending on your area, you are likely to find at least a couple things in this list to be both easy to grow and an utter delight to eat. Continue reading “40 “Rare” Fruit Species to Try Growing on the California Coast”
On December 1, we held our annual Holiday Potluck at the Santa Cruz Live Oak Grange, one of our most important community-focused events for the membership of the Monterey Bay Chapter of California Rare Fruit Growers. At this event we meet new and old friends to discuss our year in fruit gardening, share ripe harvests and delicious home cooking, and peer forward to our group’s year to come.
Setting up some festive table centerpieces.
This year’s potluck drew an interesting and illuminating array of winter’s-eve fruit harvests from Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, where some microclimates have already seen their first light frosts. The images below depict a nice cross-section of what’s ripe right now, though not an exhaustive list. Please do feel free to comment below with any notable omissions of fruits you’re picking this time of year (fall-winter cusp) from your Monterey Bay garden.
A display of a few of the subtropicals (and other fruits) available for ripe harvest on December 1 around Santa Cruz and the Monterey Bay area.
The Monterey Bay chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers extends many thanks to breeder Ellen Thompson and field manager Juan of Pacific Berry Breeding in Watsonville, CA, for leading yesterday’s exhaustive and elucidating tour of their caneberry breeding facility. Pacific Berry Breeding, one of only a handful of caneberry breeding operations spread across the globe, works with material from public breeding institutions and germplasm repositories, and under contract with major commercial berry producers, to develop novel varieties of blackberry and raspberry for the fresh market.
Ellen demonstrated for us the traditional breeding methods employed here, showing her technique for making controlled crosses via manual pollination. She discussed how seedling varieties are evaluated for quality and commercial viability, and how seedlings are chosen to advance from season to season as “selections”, and then as “advanced selections” suitable for larger field trials. Fewer than 2% of of an initial cohort of seedlings will make it as far as propagation for extensive trials.
Caneberry breeder Ellen Thompson demonstrates some of the techniques of hand pollination for controlled crosses.
One parent will have its anthers and pollen extracted from a flower, to be applied to a flower of another plant that has been carefully emasculated with a razor knife.
Following our fascinating extended tour of Pacific Berry Breeding, a dozen of us with the afternoon free reconvened at chapter secretary Ken Konviser’s Bobcat Ridge homestead avocado farm for a tasty potluck lunch and tour of his gardens.
Jujubes, autumn olives, and muscadines brought by CRFG members to sample at the potluck
At Ken’s hillside farm with a broad view overlooking the valleys of Corralitos and out to the bay, and beyond his tidy rows of terraced vegetables and healthy small orchard of numerous avocado varieties for market, we also enjoyed examining some of the more exotic specimens that he’s planted.
Developing fruits of ‘Palo d’Oro’ avocado. This locally introduced variety from Big Sur is a seedling of Pinkerton.
This website was designed with the intention to be your reference point for all of the most important things happening with the Monterey Bay chapter of CRFG.
Check in with our current calendar of events, send your friends to our new online membership form, and see photos of local fruit happenings on our news blog.
We’ve built this website for our membership, so please let us know any ways it can better serve you. In fact, you can contact our chapter board directly through this site at the link above!
