beginning of harvest

It's that time of year again when harvest has begun. Bryan is a busy bee and I'm always finding creative ways to use up all the stuff he brings home for us [got any ideas? Send em my way!]. Lately we have bees wax, lavender, the last of the oranges, the start of the apples, cabbage, fennel, figs, apricots and white peaches. The bees wax we'll turn into candles, the lavender we made into lavender sugar [SO yummy in tea!], orange juice, apple juice, veggie juice, risotto, fig jam, and dried apricots and peaches. It's weird to think that things are just going to speed up from here.

All photos taken with instagram and vscocam

Bee Keeping

Olive Juice [I love you]

Sometimes Bryan gets the chance to work on other farms for a day or two. A couple of weeks ago, we spent the day pruning on an olive orchard in Sunol. It sits on top of a hill in the middle of the regional park. Isn't it beautiful? It makes us excited for the day we have our own land. Hope it's as beautiful as this place is. 

Cherries

Hey, Bryan here!

So it's really exciting out at the farm right now because spring has sprung! There are finally leaves and greenery everywhere! We've been having to water things because the rains have stopped; however, the first fruit of the season is here.....CHERRIES!!! We have 4 varieties out at the farm and the "Early Sweets" are living up to their name, and as soon as those are done we'll move to the next then the next.... at least that's the plan. This year we've been having trouble with the spotted wing drosophila. These little fruit flies are a brand new pest in california that someone snuck past the border checkpoints. They're making a mess of cherry production because they don't have any real predators here and are hard to control, luckily this first variety didn't get hit too hard yet though, so we have been munching away! Here are some pictures Sam took of them...