Fresh Organic Fruit Delivery Starts with D.E. Boldt’s Green Thumb

What do you get when a church organ builder and a fourth-generation farmer-turned-botanist marry each other? Well, in Parlier, California, you get D.E. Boldt—an organic stone fruit farm with the kind of high-tech fruit packing system that’s rare for a family operation. 

Meet the Farmers: Dorothy and David Boldt

“If I have the green thumb, he has the greasy or technical thumb,” Dorothy Boldt told The FruitGuys of her husband, David. “He can repair and build things, and he loves the electronic aspect of farming, which I never would have gone into myself.”  

Their family farm includes the homestead where Dorothy grew up, a 130-acre orchard bursting with peach, plum, and nectarine trees, and a packing house for the fruit. It has a box dumper, a print-and-apply sticker machine, and an automated weighing system. 

D.E. Boldt is named for Dorothy and David, who both have middle names that start with E. 

“Forty years ago, David took me by the hand and we jumped into deciphering orchards and vineyards while caring for a storied old farmhouse. It has been a great ride!” Dorothy said. She added that their three sons—Alex, Nicholas, and Peter—“are full of energy, ideas, and innovation” and are starting to take the reins of the family business. 

That happy harmony mirrors the balance in the orchard, where the Boldts’ organic farming practices work with nature to produce ripe and juicy fruit for our fresh organic fruit deliveries. 

Sensational Stone Fruit, From White Peaches to Nectaplums

The FruitGuys first partnered with the Boldts in 2016, and we’re excited to work with them again this summer. We’re adding their delicious stone fruits to our organic fruit delivery boxes for offices and schools in California and beyond. In early July, we called Dorothy to find out how the season was going.

“It’s been an off-the-charts good one for weather and fruit quality!” she told us. “Right now our humidity is a little bit higher, but I don’t want to complain—I know parts of the country that would laugh at what I’m calling humidity.” 

She added that she and her team were busy in the orchard that afternoon. 

“Right now, we’re harvesting the last of the Hiromi Red plums. We’re also picking Summer Flare 27s—a yellow nectarine—and the last of the Ice Princess white peaches. As we speak, the crew is moving to the Grand Bright yellow nectarines. We’re picking those four varieties today.”

D.E. Boldt grows more than seventy varieties of unique white and yellow peaches, red and black plums, and white and yellow nectarines. They also raise hybrid varieties (crosses between two different types of fruit), including: 

• Pluots – a plum and apricot cross that’s more plum
• Apriums – a plum and apricot cross that’s more apricot
• Nectaplums – a plum and nectarine cross 
• Peacotums – a mix of peach, apricot, and plum genes

Each hybrid has the best traits of both parents and offers a one-of-a-kind snack experience. 

“Peacotums are small and a little bit tart, but they’re also sweet and fuzzy like a peach or an apricot,” Dorothy said. 

Top Picks from the Orchard: Dorothy’s Favorite Fruits

As fun as the hybrid varieties are, Dorothy told us she often prefers the classics. She has a soft spot for Blenheim apricots (which her mom used to can every summer), plums (they come in so many colors and flavors!), and Elberta peaches. 

“The Elberta peach was the first thing my family planted here, and it has an interesting story. It’s from Georgia and was the first commercial peach, but by today’s standards, it’s very delicate and virtually unshippable. Still, I really like it—it’s not too sweet, so a lot of people don’t like it, but it’s just pure peach with a wonderful texture,” Dorothy said. 

Ultimately, though, she’s happy eating all of the fresh organic fruits in her family’s orchard, from sweet peaches to crisp and tangy nectarines.  

“My standard answer to the question, ‘What’s your favorite variety?’ is that it’s the fruit in my hand that I’m about to eat,” she said. “When it’s the beginning of the season and I have our first May Princess yellow peach, what good does it do to long for a peach that ripens in July?” 

5 Generations of Farmers Who Care

Dorothy’s passion for fruit and harmony with the land has deep roots. Her great-grandmother and her three adult children moved from Minnesota to California to farm in 1913. They bought the land and built the house where Dorothy and David still live today. They also planted an orchard of Elberta peach trees. 

Dorothy’s grandparents continued the family business through World War II. When their neighbor, a Japanese American farmer named Gensuke Katsura, was imprisoned in an internment camp, they took care of his farm as well. He later gifted them two ornamental trees from his garden as a thank-you, and they still bloom every year outside the farmhouse window.

In 1987, Dorothy’s father passed the reins to her and David. Her passion for farming caught his attention even though she considered herself “ninth in line” to inherit the land. 

She’s been tending the trees ever since, and teaching her sons how to partner with native vegetation and local predators to keep the orchard healthy. It’s a delicate balance that takes a lot of time, love, and hard work. In that spirit, D.E. Boldt’s tagline is simple: “We care about the food on your plate and how it got there.”

A Fresh Organic Fruit Delivery Partnership With The FruitGuys

We’re proud to add D.E. Boldt’s fruit to the mixes we deliver to offices and schools. It has a special farm-fresh flavor. In fact, Dorothy told us, visitors to the farm sometimes recognize her fruit from their office break rooms.

“One of my sons brought a friend here once. She was eating our fruit and said, ‘Man, I haven’t had something this good since I was working in the office and we had—’ all of a sudden, she looked at the sticker on the piece of fruit she was eating and said, ‘Oh my gosh, do you know The FruitGuys?’” I said, ‘Yes, we supply them!’” 

The scene has played out more than once, and it tickles Dorothy every time. 

“I just think it’s the coolest thing for a business to provide easy, alternative snacks to all of the junk food that we fall back on,” she said. 

Try D.E. Boldt’s Farm-Fresh Fruit

You can find fruit from D.E. Boldt and other small farms that care in our Harvest and Season’s Best mixes. Whether you’re looking for summer stone fruit or favorites like apples and pears, our fresh organic fruit delivery brings the best of the season straight to your door. Browse our full selection for your office or your home!