One Season On The Farm

Laura Avery
Mirror contributing writer

   The town of Gustine, California, lies 100 miles from San Francisco, 100 miles from Sacramento, and 100 miles from Yosemite. It is in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley’s fertile farm country, where plantings of almonds, grapes, field tomatoes and fruit trees stretch from the foothills of the Diablo mountain range to the west across the valley floor toward the towering Sierras. Many of the farms are corporations with packing and shipping facilities on site that efficiently move their produce, under familiar brand names, to wholesale buyers for distribution nationwide. 
   One of the smaller farms in the area is an organic apricot orchard that grows two tasty and non-commercial varieties, the Modesto and the Tilton, for sale to local supermarkets and farmers’ markets in the Bay area. This past apricot season, which just ended in the eastern valley, was a bad one for farmers, who saw their record crop buffeted by low prices due to natural oversupply and an unprecedented influx of apricots from Turkey. 
   To make matters worse, an early heat wave caused the fruit to be undersized. Brokers, retailers and farmers felt that sinking feeling that poor prices brings – and some apricot farmers’ thoughts turned toward removing their orchards of early season Castlebrights in favor of another, more lucrative crop. 
   The apricot market has long been subject to low prices and lack of consumer loyalty, due largely to the prevalence of the Castlebright and other such varieties of apricot which are amazingly bereft of flavor, juiciness, snap or character. It does mature early into large, bright orange piece of fruit that ships extremely well, and it has therefore become almost exclusively the apricot of choice for packers and shippers. 
   Apricot growers removed themselves long ago from voluntary assessment and membership in the California Tree Fruit Commission, a marketing entity with regulatory oversight over growers of peaches, plums and nectarines. Many consumers do not get excited about apricots like they do when they smell those first ripe peaches and nectarines on the market and take that first, explosively juicy bite. The apricot’s identity and very soul have been modified by packers and shippers who wish only to have the first fruit on the market, no matter how it tastes.
   Our organic apricot orchard in Gustine, ruefully named Needmore Farm, has trees that were planted over 25 years ago. Its current owners, Mike and Edith Clark, took over the orchard 21 years ago. Having just returned from the UK, where Mike’s career as a geologist had relocated the Clarks for several years, the couple was on the lookout for property that could maintain their preference for an agrarian lifestyle and support Edith’s pursuits as an accomplished horsewoman. They found a 12-acre apricot orchard with an additional 25 acres of open land located on an irrigation canal with an existing well. Fortunately, although the Clarks didn’t know it at the time, the old varieties of Tilton and Modesto apricots on their farm were prolific producers and tasted great. They set about studying fruit farming by reading books and manuals, and gradually made the transition to organic farming practices. They set the trees up on a drip irrigation system, and allowed cover crops (weeds) to grow up between the rows to provide habitat for beneficial insects and to increase soil fertility. Their real challenge, however, was to get the short-season, abundant and fragile crop directly to consumers while it was at the peak of its flavor.
   Edith traveled to specialty retail groceries in the Bay area with her tree-ripe fruit and found willing buyers. During harvest season, from May through June, a picking crew is hired to remove approximately 150 boxes of fruit per day from the orchard, sort them by size and color, and send them out to retail outlets. Edith also took selling space in the Mountain View farmers’ markets, where she invited wary customers to taste her fruit. Many apricot growers, feeling the pinch of poor markets, try to move their commercial varieties through farmers’ markets, and Edith found she had to reintroduce people’s tastebuds to an exceptional piece of fruit. She contracted with a local kitchen to produce apricot jam, apricot barbeque sauce, and a one-gallon sized jar of pure processed apricots for a “crisp kit.” 
   Slowly, Needmore Farms’ apricots began winning loyal repeat customers. Previous year’s customers are notified by mail in advance of the farm’s return to the farmers’ market, and they come back with empty jars for a refill of the taste they have come to expect. Still, competition is intense. The small independent grocery store that was one of Needmore’s best customers was bought by a larger chain, and for the first time haggling over prices and late payments became a reality. More growers crowded into the local farmers’ market and customers had to look harder to find Needmore’s stand. 
   But Edith and Mike are standing by their fruit. If a bust cycle is in store for the apricot industry, the Clarks feel that their fruit will only increase in value as customers seek out better flavor. They remember the story told in David Mas Matsumoto’s best-selling book, Epitaph For a Peach, in which the family’s orchard of Sun Crest peaches was saved from mass market extinction due to the author’s unwavering faith in the quality of his fruit. Now, happily, the Sun Crest crop is a sellout each year and the orchard’s future is secure. 
   For now, the Clarks and their apricot orchard are resting. The weeds will be deeply plowed so that winter rains will be better absorbed, and in early spring the trees will again be pruned and thinned for next year’s harvest. Hopefully, their customers’ memories of the good-tasting Modesto and Tilton apricots will linger for another year’s harvest.