Sri Ahobila Jeeyar Swamiji visits the orchard just after the harvest.

Irrational fear of chemicals

I know it's a touchy topic. Pesticides. Some say we are  dousing our farms and orchards with dangerous chemicals and that it will lead to silent spring.

First of all, we do not _douse_ our orchards with pesticides. Many people throw fertilizers and pesticides into the same bucket. Fertilizers are like vitamin supplements. Pesticides are like anti-biotics. We only use pesticides if and when needed.

Second of all, I, maybe, understand people's concerns about pesticide residues on fruits like apple and grapes. But, we grow almonds, which are inside a hard-shell, which in turn is inside a thick hull.

Finally, some people just don't like the word "chemical." The notion that chemicals are a distinct group of modern evils invading our food supply is ludicrous.

Every physical thing is exclusively made of chemicals.

No food or medicine can be "chemical free." The only thing that is chemical free is a perfect vacuum and perhaps those tiny spaces between atoms.

But any object sold to you is chemicals (unless, of course, it is a big box of nothing in which case it is probably not worth your money- also you should discard the box- it's jam packed with chemicals).

• We take from nature both the life saving penicillin and the dangerous anthrax..

• We make in laboratories the life saving insulin and BPA.

• Then there's a world of neutral:
• the delicious potato and it's poisonous leaves
• pesticides which help provide more people with affordable produce but with unknown effects on people and the environment. 
• the polymers which keep lettuce fresher reducing wasted food but end up in landfills failing to rot away.

Interesting stuff..

Love light of the trees is shining low?

Trees are light on nuts!? Or so it seems.  We don't know really. It's a little tricky to tell.

The crunchy green nuts.. The (green exterior) hull continues to harden and mature, and in Aug it begins to split open. In the following two months, the split widens, exposing the shell, which allows the kernel (nut) to dry.

When a harvest becomes personal..

Lane and I decided to pick the first harvest of candycots ourselves. Because the harvest is light. So, it's not worth the expense to hire harvest workers and it's a shame to leave them on trees. We had a lot of fun picking fruit and inspecting the orchard at the same time. Why is harvest light? We think it's "juvenile unpredictability" on the part of the trees.

Trying to get a glimpse into our future..

Our future with Candycots, anyway. Made a visit to the Candycot packing operation to get an idea. This is where we will be sending our fruit to get it packaged and shipped to whole foods and such. This is set up at Britton/Konynenburg's modesto ranch. The fruit looks beautiful this year and the flavor is amazing.  However, it will be a year or two before our candycot orchard bears sufficient fruit to call it a commercial operation.

Rust? A shower may be prescribed..

The crops look good, trees are growing well, and the oats are "in the barn." The mild weather has been pleasant, but is conducive to rust disease. We put a fungicide on this month to prevent the disease, but we will continue to watch for it.

Rust disease looks like the following:

The curious case of a green almond.

Lane is my teacher. He explains, with a well placed dissected green almond on his palm: "The process of solidification of the nut meats continues to advance from the tip of the almond toward the base. This is visible as the gelatinous material becomes opaque. As this process continues the nuts become heavier. This is an early-harvesting Nonpareil nut. Interestingly, the later-maturing Monterey and Woods Colony nuts are just as far along in this process." Good to know.