Home Grown Almonds Blog

Preparation for harvest starts early.  Weed management is one of the keys to a successful harvest.  This year is a little unusual because of the water shortage, but today I mowed the orchard to chop up the dead weeds.  This helps speed the decopmosition of the organic matter and minimizes interference with the harvest equipment.  Sweeping and raking are a huge challenge if the weeds are not kept in check.

Things are starting to heat up here in the Central Valley of California.  The hot weather is great for the developing almonds.  The trees soak up the sunshine as photosynthesis is in full swing.  It’s really such a peaceful time in the orchard.

With water flowing to the trees, the almonds grow and the leaves are bright green.  The canopy makes a perfect aviary for resident birds.  Many doves and robins nest in the orchard and fortunately, their eggs have hatched and the young have time to grow enought to fly before harvest season begins.  As you might imagine, the harvest isn’t very friendly to the nests (my boys love to scour the orchard floor after the trees have been shaken to find nests on the ground).

This is proving to be a challenging year due to severe irrigation water restrictions.  We are irrigating from our well due to the limitied availability and expense of water from the local irrigation district and the Department of the Interior.

The almonds are growing despite the dry conditions, and we’re working extra hard to make sure we have a successful crop.  We know many of you look forward to the new crop each season, and we certainly don’t want to disappoint anyone!

Thankfully Rebecca has been a huge help to me with the irrigation, and even the kids enjoy helping as much as they can.

Today is tax day in the United States.  It’s the perfect reason to eat lots of almonds.