KINGSBURG, CA – Summer time in California is the peak of stone fruit season.
This is the time to bite into a shiny plum or pluot, fuzzy peaches or speckled nectarines.
On a recent unusually cool and breezy June afternoon in Kingsburg, farmers packed the 18th annual Organic Stone Fruit Jubilee to get their best fruit in front of customers.
The booths at this jubilee belonged to a host of small local farmers who grow organic fruit. Names like D.E. Boldt Family Farms, Olson Family Farms and Valley Wide Organic Farms were plastered on signs.
Each farmer kept a steady supply of sliced up stone fruit varieties spread across their tables – offering up what only the rich soil beneath California can give.
“You got the last one,” Bryce Loewen said smiling to a man who picked up the last juicy slice of his farm’s Summer Grand. “That’s a really nice high acid yellow nectarine,” he said as the man chewed in approval.
Loewen is a fourth generation farmer at his family’s Blossom Bluff Orchards in Parlier. His family began farming on that land in 1931. He’s now raising his kids to be the fifth generation of farmers, passing on knowledge he’s learned over generations.
“With nectarines, I always look for lots of speckles on the skin, what my grandpa called sugar marks,” he said as he rolled a white nectarine in his hand. “So, they tend to be a little speckly, or russety even, like a little rough. Those tend to be the sweetest pieces of fruit individually.”
For delicate summer fruits like these yellow and white peaches and nectarines, Loewen said it’s best to get them straight from the grower because the fruit is picked when the flavor is at its best.
“If you're buying them in a conventional setting, what happens is they’re harvested in a very premature state and that’s done because they need to survive transportation, storage, various things that put a lot of strain on the fruit,” Loewen said.
Farmers need to sell their harvest at outdoor markets to survive. But often, what they grow in the Central Valley doesn’t stay here – an irony playing out in America’s food basket.
There’s usually more demand for stone fruits in places such as the Bay Area or southern California, Loewen said.
That’s why every new – and local – face farmers see at events like the stone fruit jubilee in Kingsburg is a crucial point of connection.
Maya Solano-McDaniel was visiting from Fresno and had never been to the jubilee. But she has had a taste of the Valley’s tree-ripened stone fruit her whole life.
“My grandpa lived in Selma and did refrigeration and so I grew up with him bringing home big extra boxes of pluots and plums and different fruits and stuff,” she said.
Solano-McDaniel has also started growing her own produce and noted the difference in taste with what she buys at the supermarket. But when it comes to Valley-grown stone fruit, she described it in simple terms.
“It tastes like sun, you know what I mean,” she said with a laugh. “There’s just that freshness that’s different.”
Stone fruits are something the Valley knows how to grow. The heat during the day and the cool evenings are ideal conditions, said Nick Boldt, who started his own farm in Reedley eight years ago
“We have water from the mountains when we get snow and rain. The soil is good. We’ve got sort of a Mediterranean climate. Yeah, we’re kind of a unique area,” he said.
Boldt’s farm is just down the way from D.E. Boldt Family Farms in Parlier. It’s land his mother’s family has had for over 100 years. At the jubilee, Boldt’s farm offerings include names like Sugar Lips and Summer Flame.
It’s becoming less common these days to find small family farms operating, especially one with a legacy as long as Olson Family Farms.
“Our family came from Sweden in 1888, settled here in 1889 and started farming right away,” said Magnus Olson, as he stood in front of his booth.
In the 137 years Olson’s family has been in Kingsburg, he’s expanded his business to cattle production and even a brewery. But it always comes back to his farming roots. Next to his stand was an old variety of Laroda plums.
“That one, actually, my dad planted in 1970 and we’re still picking off the same trees,” Olson said.
Even with his family’s long history, Olson acknowledged every generation of farmer faces the same challenges: labor and water supply, and the rising cost of goods. Adding to the challenge of small organic growers, is the competition to produce and sell their products against industrial-sized farms that have grabbed a huge share of the organic market.
“The smaller you are, the more expensive it costs,” Olson said.
To help small local farmers gain an edge in the market, a regional brand was recently launched. It’s called “Central to the Valley” and launched this year to bring more visibility to Valley farmers and the local bounty of agricultural produce.
Anna Larsen, a project manager for the initiative, was stationed at a booth at the jubilee.
“Marketing tasks get bumped down the line because they’re something perhaps you could put off. But if you want to grow your business and you want to move your product and get a better price for it, you do need to do some marketing,” said Larsen.
The group created a buying guide that lists local farms, farmers markets, restaurants and retailers that offer valley-grown produce. Larsen said it’s a way to bring people closer to what’s grown within miles of them.
So close, Larsen said, that people can even find nearby opportunities to go right into the farm and pick the fruit themselves.
“That’s a really good way to get kids excited about eating fruits and vegetables, is to take them to a farm,” Larsen said.
She said the upside of picking the fruit off the tree yourself is “it tastes a lot better.”
