Organic Produce grown by a fellow kiter

[Bulldog]

We grow organic veggies and fruit near Davis on 200 acres, and deliver 5 days a week to the Bay Area and 2 days a week in Davis and Sacto.
The name of my farm is Terra Firma.

If you shop at Rainbow Grocery, Market Hall Produce, or the Davis or Sac Food Coops you are already buying our stuff. We also deliver weekly boxes of seasonal produce (CSA boxes), offering 3 different sizes on two different delivery days, to drop-offs scattered through neighborhoods in the city, the East Bay, Davis, and Sacto. Lastly, we sell our stuff at the Saturday Berkeley Farmers Market on Center St., from 10-3, most every week of the year.

Our produce is always picked fresh and delivered the next day. We grow lots of varieties that you can't always find in the stores, and our strawberries, tomatoes, melons, citrus, and stonefruit almost always taste better than anything you get in the supermarket. Plus, it's all grown in the most ecologically friendly ways possible.

If you want more info, check our website [url=http://www.terrafirmafarm.com] which has a list of drop sites and prices. Or PM here at BAK. Or email me at tff25833@aol.com

Thanks

[OliverG]

Paul,

We stopped by Saturday and loaded up, but didn't see you there. Great quality produce, though, thanks!

Ollie

[Bulldog]

I was on the night shift on Friday night, trying to keep the citrus alive, so I got excused from market duty.

The attached picture is one of our citrus orchards that got irrigated all night to keep it alive. Yes, those are icicles.

Thanks for shopping, though.

[fearlu]

Jeez. That should be your new avatar. Username? Cool Produce!

[dewey]

Paul can you explain to us how having ice covering your fruit helps to keep it warm??

[windhorny]

please explain that pic? Where did that much water come from to be able to freeze on it like that? WOW!

[Bulldog]

Here's how it works:

There are three ways to raise the temperature in an agricultural setting: Burning stuff, which the AQMD frowns upon; Generating wind with a big wind machine, which keeps the air moving (and is really expensive and doesn't work if there's a wind chill); and irrigating the field.

Temperatures below 26 degrees destroy citrus fruit. Temperatures below 22 degrees for more than an hour or two can defoliate or even kill the tree entirely.

If you run enough water on the ground or through the air, it raises the air temperature. We were watering the field in that picture with overhead sprinklers, about 1000 gallons a minute over the 2 acres of trees. The water from our well is 65 degrees, which is much warmer than the 18 degrees the air was last night. As long as you keep the water moving, it keeps the temperature up.

Ice forms at 32 degrees (duh) and stays at 32 degrees, which is also warmer than 18. So the ice on the leaves insulates the plant from the colder air. Unfortunately, in this case we had to run the water for so long (12 hours on Saturday night) that the giant icicles ended up snapping many of the branches on the trees. Still, broken branches are better than dead trees.

Unfortunately, last night the pump running the sprinklers stopped working for several hours and I didn't get it running until after midnight, so the trees suffered a certain amount of freeze damage in the interim. They aren't dead, but they'll probably lose most of their leaves and get set back a year or so in their growth.

Does that answer most of your questions?

[Greg]

man that looks like parts of the north-east, I hope your crops make a good comeback!!
L.M.G.

[windhorny]

Thanks for the description. Makes sense now. I am curious, much like a human loses most heat from the head, if you were to put heating blankets around the trunk of the trees, would that be enough to keep the rest warmed up? I would think there would be some kind of chemical warming solution that would last long enough to pull through a few days of chill.

Yuri

[Bulldog]

With plants it's all about the leaves. Wrapping the trunk will help keep the tree from dying completely, but it doesn't save the top part of the tree.

Funny you should say that, Greg. The weather lately has kinda felt like the Northeast. Even SoCal has been in the 30s and 20s.