It seems that just overnight everything has leafed out and we’re full speed ahead toward our May harvest! Blossoms are falling away and revealing growing green fruits inside. You can already see the fuzz on the apricots and a couple peach varieties. The cherries are exploding and Farmer Al thinks we’ll have to thin them for the first time ever (more on that soon). Mulberries are also just around the corner!

Apricots

As you know, tragically, the February frost affected our early season apricots. We’re not sure yet how much of the Apache and Kettleman crop has been affected, but it’s not looking good. As we feel that loss, we are reassured that plenty of our mid-May apricot varieties are looking good and we can’t help but be excited for our other early season favorites, all to be harvested in May! Royal Tioga cherries, Pakistan mulberries, Galaxy white peaches, and Princess Time peaches.

Cherries

Cherries need hundreds of “chill hours” in the winter each year, where temperatures are between 32 and 45 F, in order to produce a good crop in spring. They need at least 800 chill hours and could even do with 900, if they can get it. With warming temperatures each season, though, it’s getting harder and harder to hit that out here in Brentwood. We were elated this year when we hit just over 800–a number we haven’t seen in almost a decade. We expect one of our biggest crops in years! The season’s first variety, the Royal Tioga, has a dark, rich flesh and unreal sweetness.

Cherry trees showing fruit set

Peaches!

We know everyone loves peaches as much as we do. Until just a few years ago, we had to wait until June before we harvested our first peach. Finding early season peach varieties with the sweet and nuanced flavor we all love is not easy but we are pleased to have found two excellent varieties that ripen in May! 2022 will mark the third season we are harvesting the Galaxy white peach–an intensely sweet, low acid, unusually shaped freestone. Shortly thereafter we’ll pick the Princess Time yellow peach, a clingstone with dark red skin and melting flesh. These two varieties are delicious in their own right but especially so since they are ready so early.

Peach tree fruit set as blossom fall away

Check out our harvest calendar to see what else there is to look forward to and follow along on Instagram as everything grows out in the field. We know that this last month before stone fruit harvest is one full of anticipation and eagerness. We’re squirming in our chairs too! We promise the wait is worth it.