Dan Willey, the “fruitmentor”, discusses new citrus varieties with the Monterey Bay California Rare Fruit Growers. Wondering what new varieties are coming up? Dan’s presentation solicits ideas from the growers’ group.
Tasting 62 Varieties of Bay Area Grown Citrus
On Saturday, the Monterey Bay chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers held a tasting for its membership of 62 citrus varieties, all locally grown in Santa Cruz county. Follow along below for photos of them.
Recipe: Pomelo in 3 Green Salads
Pomelo pairs so well with many vegetables, like arugula, fennel, beet, radish & avocado. So I use it like crazy in green salads this time of year. Here are several of my family’s favorites:
Continue reading “Recipe: Pomelo in 3 Green Salads”Recipe: Persimmon-Citrus-Apple Butter (or Sauce)
Early Winter Fruit Harvests of Santa Cruz and Monterey
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.
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.
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A Visit to Ken’s Bobcat Ridge Avocado Farm
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.
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.
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