Peach Delivery Starts Here: Meet California Farmer Blake Carlson

If you’ve ever enjoyed a fresh, juicy California peach in a delivery from The FruitGuys, you may have Blake Carlson to thank. Blake and his wife Lisa run Rocking Chair Farm Markets, a roughly 400-acre family farm in Kingsburg, California. They grow peaches, nectarines, plums, table grapes, almonds, walnuts, and persimmons—and they’ve helped stock The FruitGuys’ mixed fruit boxes for almost twenty years. 

Meet Farmer Blake Carlson

Blake grew up growing grapes and sun-drying them into raisins on his family’s hobby farm. Spreading the grapes out on paper trays and packing them into boxes weeks later was hot, dusty work, but he fell in love with farming anyway. 

“I think it was the way of life,” he told The FruitGuys. “Just working with all of my brothers and sisters and my dad. We worked together and it was fun.”

After he graduated from college in the mid-1980s, a local farmer offered Blake the opportunity to take over his 100-acre orchard of cannery peaches, and he jumped at the chance. Peaches appealed because, as he put it, “There’s nothing sexy about a raisin.”

A few years later, he and Lisa transitioned from farming cannery peaches to fresh peaches and other stone fruits. Blake couldn’t wait to tackle the challenge of growing fruit that looked as good as it tasted. 

How to Grow the Perfect Peach

When we called Blake in early June to check in on his crop, he picked up the phone from the middle of his orchard. Sitting between rows of Sierra Snow white peaches and Sierra Rich yellow peaches, he told us that growing fresh-eating peaches that look good and are delicious and sturdy enough for peach delivery isn’t just a job—it’s an art form. 

“Americans buy with their eye, so you’re always manipulating the tree to get better sunlight, which produces better color and better sugars. There’s a lot to it,” he said. 

People aren’t nearly so picky about can-bound peaches. To get the best possible flavor and texture, Blake feeds his trees with compost and spends a lot of time in the orchard pruning branches and taking tissue samples to make sure every tree is getting enough nutrients. 

Farmer Blake’s Favorite Varieties

At Rocking Chair Farm Markets, stone fruit season starts in May and runs through mid-September. Blake’s favorite fruit is the early-season Zee Fire yellow nectarine, but when we spoke, he was excited to harvest another favorite: the Sierra Rich yellow peach. 

“It’s a very, very impressive yellow peach. It’s a nice size, with a good shape, good color, and it has a very good brix, meaning it has a high sugar content,” he said. 

In early July, he looks forward to the Summer Sweet white peach. It’s sweet and low-acid, without the tart kick most yellow peaches offer. 

“White fruit is basically just sugar. So if you bite into that, you don’t get an explosion in your mouth—it just tastes nice and sweet,” Blake said. 

This Year’s Peach Crop: What to Expect

Blake told us that this year’s peach crop is about 10 percent smaller than average, but overall, he’s happy with the season so far. His fruit is in high demand because of bad weather in the southern peach-growing states that reduced their harvest and a smaller-than-expected crop on California cherry farms. The weather was kind to the fruit, too. 

“This year, we caught a little bit of hail early on, but it wasn’t too bad. Last year, we walked away from forty acres due to hail. Nectarines take the hardest hit—peaches take a little bit of a hit, but because of the fuzz, they’re a little more durable,” he said. 

From the Farm to Your Office: Follow Your Peach Delivery

The FruitGuys has proudly bought Blake’s peaches, plums, and nectarines directly from his farm for our California fruit mixes and bulk cases since 2007. That means the fruit never goes into cold storage—it travels straight from the farm, to one of The FruitGuys’ California facilities, to schools and offices like yours. 

“What you’re getting is really about as fresh as you can get it. It’s how it was in the old days,” Blake said. 

Rocking Chair Farm Markets has also banded together with about a dozen other family farms to sell fruit through Mountain View Fruit Sales. That partnership helps them fulfill larger orders and send their fruit farther across the country. Through Mountain View Fruit Sales, The FruitGuys added Blake and his friends’ stone fruits to lucky Midwest mixes this season, too. 

What Makes This Peach Farm Special

Blake takes great pride in his fruit and in every aspect of being a farmer. When we asked what makes Rocking Chair Farm Markets special, he said, “We care.”

Blake started farming on his own, but now he and Lisa have two kids and five grandkids. Their son Tyler, his wife Cheryl, and their sons Owen, Elliot, and Arthur all help out on the family farm. Their daughter Chelsey, her husband David Salazar, and their sons Lowell and Joaquin farm citrus nearby. All five grandsons are third-generation farmers.

Cheryl also brought a unique set of skills to the farm when she joined the family. She studied theater in college and soon started an independent theater company on the property. It’s called The Village Barn Playhouse, and a few times a year, she and a group of fellow actors put on plays for Kingsburg residents. 

Partnering with The FruitGuys: How It Started & Why It Matters

Blake reached out to our team at The FruitGuys almost twenty years ago. Here’s how he tells the story. 

“In 2003 and 2004 the farm was barely hanging on, and I started doing some direct marketing soliciting retirement communities. I’d drive up and down the ‘99 [California State Route 99] dropping off boxes of fruit at the retirement communities because the older generations appreciated fresh fruit, and they started calling me ‘The Fruit Guy.’ You know, ‘Here’s The Fruit Guy!’ I thought, ‘That’s a cool name,’ so I went home and Googled Fruit Guy, and guess what popped up?”

Blake gave us a call and asked if we were interested in his farm-fresh fruit. We were, and the rest is history! We’re grateful for his trust and for this long-term, fruitful partnership that helps us bring delicious bites to offices nationwide. 

Want to get a taste? Check out our office fruit delivery options. We source fruit from family farms like Rocking Chair Farm Markets whenever we can.