Thank you everyone for your orders and support for the season. We are sold out of oranges for 2014. See you next year!
Blood Orange Season 2014
It’s that time of year again… our organic Moro blood oranges are ready for purchase. The fruit has survived the chilly winter temps and the fruit has a beautiful blush and is very tasty!
For local customers, simply contact the Farm for pricing and pick-up options. Please call 760 – 728 – 6308 or email Farmer Dave: david {at} promacksfarm {dot} com.
For non-local customers, oranges are available for purchase online. Our online “Farm Store” is accepting online purchases. CLICK HERE TO ORDER ONLINE!
Thank you for your support!
Promacks Farm
Summer’s End, 2011
The end of summer is upon us, as the season will soon change from those nice warm summer days to the time of year when the chill starts to settle, and it gets chilly as soon as the sun goes down.
Summer 2011 was another good year for the farm. While the peaches and apricots weren’t as prolific as we would have liked, the trees seem primed for a better year next year. In the absence of the stone fruit, we had great years from our other varieties of produce. We had an incredible amount of tomatoes, squash, onions, garlic, cucumbers, blood oranges, and even grew some giant watermelons. Most of these goodies made it to our porch stand, and we’re very thankful for all of you that stopped by.
Like everything in life, all good things must come to an end, and as summer ends, so does the major growing window for produce. We will have a winter garden, and our blood oranges will be ready mid-winter, but the variety and amount of produce won’t quite rival summer. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t keeping busy and having fun on the farm still!
This little break allows us to do some other fun things, like making more of our own blood orange wine and also trying to make our own sunflower seeds.
We recently bottled both batches of our latest blood orange wine. We still are trying to figure out all of the nuances, but we’re definitely having fun trying (and tasting!).
Another fun project that we’ve been undertaking is experimenting with sunflower seeds. In the garden, we have some big sunflowers growing, and instead of the letting the birds pick at all of the seeds, we decided to pick the flowers and try and make our own sunflower seeds. We picked the head of the sunflower, and let it dry for a few days. Then, we removed all of the seeds and rinsed them off. Then, we let them sit for a few more days in a salt-water solution (almost like brining a turkey) and the next step will be to bake them. Will these taste anything like the seeds you buy in the store? Who knows. But it certainly gained us an appreciation into how much work goes into those snacks.
So as we say goodbye to another wonderful summer on Promacks Farm, we are grateful for another good season, and hopeful for what our approaching seasons will bring.
Stay tuned for updates on what to plant now for your winter garden…
Porch Check – June 21, 2011
Happy first day of Summer! And on this wonderful first day of summer, here’s a “porch check” for what we have ready:
Tuesday morning Porch Check: Peaches are ripe and delicious, and the apricots are almost gone. We have a small supply of plums ripe now, and the tomatoes are about a week away. We have lots of zucchini, onions, beans, garlic, blood oranges, grapefruit, and cucumbers. Hope to see you on the Farm!
March On The Farm
March is almost gone, my how time flies…
We’ve been keeping VERY busy with our blood orange crop. Our buyer has been requesting plenty of boxes, and that means lots of picking, cleaning, and packing. Even though it is plenty of hard work, it is worth it because it is always nice to be able to sell our crop. Blood orange season is winding down however, so that means our time and focus gets to shift.
March has seen huge growth of our tomato seedlings. Farmer Dave planted about 80 tomato plants and was able to sell those seedlings to friends and others in the community. Spring is officially here, and while it seems funny to plant summer plants in the spring, now is in fact the time to get ready for your summer garden. Spring marks the transition in the garden from winter crops to summer crops. We still have some winter crops producing for us, but we’ve definitely been getting ready for those summer crops.
Along with the tomato seedlings, Farmer Dave has been getting summer corn seedlings ready. The time to get your corn going is now, ensuring that the seedling can get enough sun to grow and have enough time to create those delicious ears of corn.
If you have any gardening/crop questions, of course feel free to call The Farm and talk to Farmer Dave.
March also saw 2 new additions to The Farm – Linda finally got the vineyard she’s always wanted, and we’ve also welcomed 8 new baby chicks to the property.
The vineyard has been a long time coming, and after much hemming and hawing, we finally have started growing wine grapes. We have a couple rows of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Thompson Seedless growing out near where the little log cabin used to be. The vines are waking up, and some even have started producing some little leaves. We are very excited at the prospect of making wine with actual grapes to go along with our other fruit wine creations.
As for the new baby chicks, we aren’t having them join the other egg-laying chickens we have on the property. These 8 baby chicks are here on the farm because we are going to experiment with raising our own eating chickens. We aren’t exactly sure how this will end up, but we figured it was at least a try.
We’ve received some nice rainfall, which is always appreciated, and we’re happy to see Spring’s arrival, along with the added evening sunlight of Daylight Savings. All in all, it’s been a busy March, but a good March.
Happy Spring, and get outside and garden!
Blood Orange Sherbet
Here’s a fun way to use our organic blood oranges – Ryan and Lindsay (our son and daughter-in-law) found a delicious recipe from the Food Network’s Alton Brown for orange sherbet, and they modified it slightly to incorporate our blood oranges. Wherever the recipe called for oranges, they used blood oranges. The recipe was really easy to make. All you need are a few items, and having an electric ice cream/frozen yogurt maker helps. The sherbet was sweet, tangy, and delicious.
Here’s the recipe, courtesy Alton Brown, 2009
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/orange-sherbet-recipe/index.html
And here’s how the dessert experiment turned out:
