I have many favorite fruits but cherries hold a special place in my heart. Maybe it’s because their harvest period is relatively short; or maybe it’s because they just taste so good—whatever the …
Preservation Harvest
When the price of corn started going up in Exeter, California due to high demand for ethanol, Mr. Herrera, an owner of 22 acres of family farmland, nearly plowed under his 40-year-old plum orchard. …
Capay Valley FarmShares
In elementary school, some friends and I went through a phase where we had dreams of being city planners. We diagrammed a world of baseball diamonds and arcades and woods with bike paths that somehow …
FruitGuy Noir in Peachy Keen
Nick fell into my office crying like an Italian sub forced onto sprouted wheat that had run aground on Mixed Metaphor Island. “Fire all morta-della-pedos!” he shouted in meat panic. He was in …
Punch Buggy Blueberry
Our all-seeing school bus driver with the flip-up, two-tone shades, and an extra-wide mirror above her head had a ranking system that was distinguishable by the depth and tone of her voice. Sit in …
A Peachy Mothers Day
Chrissy W., a Fruitguys customer service expert, flies me back to South Carolina on a magic carpet woven just for Mother’s Day from matriarchal memory threads in a southern storytelling …
Of Rabbit Holes & Writing Desks
Nessie, the six-month-old chocolate lab, tears through the house wanting nothing more than to lick the cat until it becomes her friend. A puffed up and spitting blur of fur trailed by a bottle brush …
Office to Home; Inside to Out
In my daydreaming mind, skyscrapers in cities all across America turn Chia Pet and sprout Alfalfa as a cover crop on their roofs; highway medians spontaneously erupt with tomato vines causing traffic …
Banana Jungle
Every summer when I was kid we would visit my grandparents in New Orleans. My dad’s folks lived in Metairie, a parish just outside the city near Lake Pontchartrain in a small, brick, one-story house. …
The Sound of Cold at Night
As a kid, I always looked forward to springtime. Winter didn’t just mean less sunlight and standing at a bus stop early in the morning in a red down jacket trying to quickly mound up disparate …
Chris Mittelstaedt’s LBAM Testimony
Chairman Florz, vice-Chair Maldonado and esteemed members of the Senate Committee on Food and Agriculture – thank you for taking the time to hear testimony today about the light brown apple moth and …
The Spring Transition
In the fruit world, spring is the hardest time of year. Summer brings its abundance of stone fruits, Fall its apples, pears, persimmons, and pomegranates, and Winter all varieties of citrus that grow …
A Natural Belly
My daughter walks into the kitchen like a drill sergeant as we are getting ready for dinner. “OK everyone!” she yells. “Belly check!” We all look at each other as she approaches my wife. “Shirt UP!” …
Plum Tree Tales
The plum tree in my backyard is awake with white blossoms that shine silver in the moonlight and cluster on the dark wood branches like downy-snow. These small, soft, flowery nests attract wobbly …
Deep Thoughts on Nature: An Ode to Jack Handy
Have I mentioned how impressed I am with nature? I mean, all those things it does for us, like make the trees magically bud and the gnomes come out and those talking cloud creatures. Even after the …
Camp Garbology
I’m a chaperone on my son’s 3-day, 5th-grade outdoor education trip. We’re on a bus heading back from a camp in Santa Cruz. As my head bobs against the cool glass window, I’m jarred out of a twilight …
Fruit Olympics
Bob: “Jane, we’re here in client services where Engineering is finally getting the chance to redeem themselves against Outbound Marketing. It’s been a tough winter Olympic season for Engineering whose …
Ponce Upon A Time. . .
Day 26: The marsh of cubicles has cursed our party. We lost Lenny two days ago to the gurgling fried dough found in the quicksand pits of a budget-planning meeting. Sue has been eating the native …
Layers of Health and Goggles
Lily, my four-year-old niece, who says things like, “Daddy, are you satisfied?” or “Mommy, what does the word "comely" mean?” decided last weekend that when going to swimming lessons one has a duty to …
The Book of Citrus
Jonathan Sauer, in his book Historical Geography of Crop Plants: A Select Roster, notes that “Almost nothing is certain about the natural geography and ecology of truly wild citrus. Both the …
