Home Grown Almonds Blog

Wow, it has been a busy week and a half!  Since my last post, when we knocked the almond trees, we’ve been working like mad in the orchard getting ready to actually harvest, pick up the nuts off the ground!
After knocking the nuts off the Nonpareil trees (every other row), the first thing I needed [...]

We’re just a couple days away from “knocking” the first variety of trees.  The nonpareil almonds are dried enough so we can shake them off the trees.  They will finish drying on the ground before we sweep them up and harvest them.
My boys have been helping me get the orchard ready for the shakers and [...]

I just spent a week up in Oregon at Young Life’s Washington Family Ranch.  What an amazing and exhausting week with high schoolers!  Coming home to the farm is always good - I feel so at peace when I’m at home, in my orchard.  Taking a walk through the orchard, I found the Non-pareil almonds [...]

I’ve been busy removing trees that have died recently. It isn’t fun work, but at least we get firewood for next winter. And any branches that still have some leaves or nuts left on them we feed to Rebecca’s milk goats - they love the treat!
Quite a few of the trees are getting diseases, some [...]

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.  [...]