The FruitLife

Fall Pears You Should Taste

By Chris Mittelstaedt on September 5, 2023

We love pears not only for their form, but also for their function—buttery as a fine chardonnay, subtly perfumed, and meltingly tender, a perfectly ripe pear can be a sublime eating …

Filed Under: Food, Produce Glossary, The FruitLife Tagged With: Bartlett Pear, Bosc Pear, Comice Pear, fall fruit, fall fruit guide, forelle pear, guide to fall fruit, pear varieties, pears, produce guide, ripening fruit, ripening pears, seasonal fruit

Save an Apple and Help a Farmer

By Chris Mittelstaedt on August 15, 2023

I wrote a couple weeks ago about how much I love Gravenstein apple season– and now it’s here! We will be making deliveries the weeks of August 21 and 28. You can experience this endangered heritage …

Filed Under: GoodWorks, Produce Glossary, The FruitLife, Video Library Tagged With: endangered, Gravenstein, Gravenstein Apple, Gravenstein apple farmer, gravenstein farmers, gravenstein history, helping small farms, John Kolling, local farmers, sonoma county, stan devoto, support farms, support small farms, supporting small farms

Does Back-to-School mean Summer is Over?

By Chris Mittelstaedt on August 8, 2023

I wasn’t a great Latin student, but I lived by the motto coined by my high school Latin Club members – semper ubi sub-ubi, “Always wear underwear.” (Ubi means “where,” but you get the idea, this was …

Filed Under: Food, GoodWorks, Nutrition, The FruitLife Tagged With: back-to-school, farm-to-school, seasonal fruit, summer fruit, The FruitGuys

The Joys of Summer Fruit

By Chris Mittelstaedt on August 1, 2023

Summer for many of us is tied to the memory of a perfect piece of fruit. The tartness of that just-picked blackberry; the smell of a peach so sweet you salivate in anticipation of biting into …

Filed Under: Diet and Health, Produce Glossary, The FruitLife Tagged With: fruit guide, fruit mixes, Gravenstein, Gravenstein Apple, harvest box, harvest upgrade, seasonal eating, seasonal fruit, seasonal mixes, seasonality, summer, summer fruit, summer fruit guide, The FruitGuys

What a Plum-mer!

By Chris Mittelstaedt on July 25, 2023

Summer is flying by faster than a fish on a unicycle and that can only mean one thing: PLUMS. Plums are now joining the parade of stone fruit that began back in June with cherries and apricots, and …

Filed Under: Ask the FruitGuys, Diet and Health, Food, Nutrition, Produce Glossary, The FruitLife Tagged With: lunch and learn, natural hybridization, plums, stone fruit, stone fruit hybrids, summer fruit, summer fruit guide, take a breather, Very Cherry Plums

Gravenstein Apples Are Coming!

By Chris Mittelstaedt on July 18, 2023

Gravenstein apple season is one of my favorite times of the year. The harvest of this endangered Northern California heirloom apple is very short -- only 2-3 weeks in August -- and heralds the …

Filed Under: Food, FruitGuys News, GoodWorks, The FruitLife Tagged With: Gravenstein, Gravenstein Apple, Gravenstein apple farmer, gravenstein apple pie, gravenstein box, gravenstein history, heirloom apples, local farmers, sonoma county, support small farms, supporting farmers, The FruitGuys

Take a Breather to Cool Off

By Chris Mittelstaedt on July 11, 2023

It’s hot out there campers. While here in Northern California, we have been blessed with an unusually-cool summer thus far, I know the rest of the country is beating heat records left and right. This …

Filed Under: Ask the FruitGuys, Diet and Health, FruitGuys News, Nutrition Tagged With: fruitguys, health, lunch and learn, Nutrition, panel discussion, tab, take a breather, take a breather on demand

Upgrade Your Fruit Mix to Get the Widest Variety of Summer Fruit

By Chris Mittelstaedt on July 6, 2023

I hope everyone enjoyed a fun and safe July 4th holiday. We gathered with family and friends and ate our way through half a case of apricots my wife had ordered through our buying department. The …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News, Produce Glossary, The FruitLife Tagged With: Apricot, ask the fruitguys, fruit box, fruit mixes, harvest box, july 4th, peelable, seasonal fruit, seasonal mixes, seasons best, summer fruit, The FruitGuys, the Fruitguys fruit mix tour, variety

FruitGuy Noir in The Stone Fruit Spinning Wheel

By Chris Mittelstaedt on June 27, 2023

My catfish Bicycle was 20 minutes into their workout on our new aqua treadmill when their hydrophone rang. “Blub, blub,” they mouthed in my direction, quickly transferring the call and motioning …

Filed Under: Ask the FruitGuys, Diet and Health, Nutrition, Produce Glossary, The FruitLife Tagged With: clingstone, freestone, fruitguy noir, nectarines, peaches, stone fruit, The FruitGuys, White Nectarine, White Peach, yellow nectarine, Yellow Peach

Happy Summer & Welcome Peaches

By Chris Mittelstaedt on June 20, 2023

At this time of year, varieties of peaches begin to come in and out of harvest almost weekly, evolving from June tartness to the cinnamony-sweet notes of late August. As I track the progression of …

Filed Under: Ask the FruitGuys, Food, FruitGuys News, Produce Glossary, The FruitLife Tagged With: flavor, fruit varieties, june, June fruit, Peach, peach varieties, peaches, stone fruit, summer fruit, unique

June Celebrations

By Chris Mittelstaedt on June 13, 2023

I love June. It’s the month when stone fruit becomes abundant, the hours of sunlight in the northern hemisphere reach their peak (summer solstice), and when we celebrate both Juneteenth & Pride …

Filed Under: Diet and Health, FruitGuys News, The FruitLife Tagged With: black owned business, diverse farmers, diverse vendors, june, June celebrations, June snacks, juneteenth, lqbtq business, pipcorn, pride, pride month, snack highlights, snacks, two chicks jerky

Summer Fruit Guide 2023

By Pia Hinckle on June 9, 2023

Do you remember biting into the first ripe peach of summer? The perfume of the fruit and the feeling of the fuzz in your hand? Summer for many of us is tied to the memory of a perfect piece of fruit. …

Filed Under: Ask the FruitGuys, Farms, Food, FruitGuys News, The FruitLife Tagged With: Angelcots, Blake Carlson, blueberries, bronx grapes, cherries, frecon farms, Fruit World, Mick Klug, Necta Pie, Peach Pies, peaches, stone fruit jam, strawberries, summer fruit, summer fruit guide, summer fruits, suncrest peach, Very Cherry Plums, what fruit is in season, what's in season

Clinging to Fruit 101

By Chris Mittelstaedt on June 6, 2023

If Cling and Freestone sounds like a 1970s folk group gone electric, you’re not quite wrong. Stone fruit season has begun and it makes me want to do a head-banging pan flute solo. It’s never too late …

Filed Under: Food, The FruitLife Tagged With: banana trees, bananas, cling fruit, freestone fruit, nectarine, peaches, ripening fruit, ripening tips, stone fruit, summer fruit

Here’s to the 2023 FruitGuys Community Fund Grantees

By Chris Mittelstaedt on May 23, 2023

Each spring, The FruitGuys Community Fund provides annual grant awards for sustainability projects to small, American farms and agricultural nonprofits. An independent review committee made up of a …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News, GoodWorks, The FruitLife Tagged With: 2023 grant awards, agricultural nonprofit, big impacts, BIPOC farmers, food access, land stewardship, LGBTQ farmers, small farms, supporting small farms, sustainability, sustainability projects, The FruitGuys Community Fund, women in agriculture

The FruitGuys Community Fund 2023 Farm Grantees Announced

By Sheila Cassani on May 16, 2023

Each spring, The FruitGuys Community Fund provides annual grant awards for sustainability projects to small, independent American farms and agricultural nonprofits. We believe small farms are critical …

Filed Under: Farms, FruitGuys News, GoodWorks, The FruitLife

The Story of the Oishi Family Farm

By Chris Mittelstaedt on May 16, 2023

This newsletter is dedicated to the Japanese-American Internees The Oishi family was part of the farming community of Japanese immigrants and Americans of Japanese ancestry who were flower growers …

Filed Under: GoodWorks, The FruitLife Tagged With: AAPI, Agriculture, collage, farming, Japanese farmers, Japanese internment, oishi family, Oishi family farm, San Francisco Flower Mart, topaz relocation camp, US history, world war II

The Gamble of Early Summer Fruit

By Chris Mittelstaedt on May 9, 2023

Long ago I wondered why slot machines used cherries as the winning images for hitting the jackpot. It didn’t make sense to me. Maybe a dollar sign, or a star, but cherries? It seemed odd. Yet a …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News, The FruitLife Tagged With: California, cherries, cherry harvest, cherry trees, chill hours, stone fruit, summer fruit

Leaping into Spring: Our 25 Year Impact Report

By Chris Mittelstaedt on May 2, 2023

I was once told by a trusted friend that, for impatient people like me who sometimes think that acting fast produces a greater result in a shorter amount of time, it is actually the ability to slow …

Filed Under: FruitGuys News, GoodWorks, The FruitLife Tagged With: 25 year impact report, fighting hunger, GoodWorks, Impact Report, supporting small farms, The FruitGuys GoodWorks

Fruit in Words and Deeds

By Chris Mittelstaedt on April 18, 2023

The struggle and beauty of fruit, its cultivation and care, is a dance of regenerative-impermanence. As we approach Earth Day, I find myself fascinated with the idea that the earth itself gives us …

Filed Under: Farms, FruitGuys News, GoodWorks, The FruitLife Tagged With: community fund, earth day, farm grants, farm stewardship, frecon farms, fruitguys community fund, land stewardship, life cycle, power of fruit, regeneration, sustainability, sustainable farming

Fruit In Words

By Julie Collins on April 18, 2023

As a business that values creativity and community engagement, we were thrilled to receive so many entries for our fruit poem contest! We were blown away by the depth of thought and imagination that …

Filed Under: The FruitLife, WorkLife