Produce Update for May 18- California stonefruit season begins and some local potatoes pop up!

We’re just going to talk mostly about fruit today! 

Whoops, our avocado’s have just arrived two days late – delayed by fires in Texas and then snow farther north.  Bizarre spring weather brought huge snowfalls just a thousand feet above the Central Valley floor on the weekend, just missing the blossoming grape crops between Fresno and Bakersfield.  Records were also broken in 35 places last night, from the Fraser Valley through to Northern Oregon, with frosts in the eastern Fraser Valley.  Warm and sunny here for the next few days, just in time for bins of watermelon for the long weekend at excellent pricing. 

Stonefruit season has arrived!  Start making room for a parade of aprium, pluot, apricot, nectarines, cherries and peaches that will go for 4 months.  We will have apricots here, we hope in time for shipping orders Thursday and local deliveries on Friday.  Nectarines will be here by the weekend! 

The other space you’re going to have to make room for is grapes!  A limited crop is starting in Mexico – with a lot of damage from the February freeze, production will be down by 40% until we hit the California season in 4-6 weeks.  Pricey to start, but this impulse item has been missing for awhile, so expect fairly big draws, despite prices high out of the gate. 

Kiwi’s are gapping until the first NZ fruit hits, which should be soon, with Fair Trade Chilean shipping this week as well. 

Mango Mango Mango. 

We’ve snagged what is likely the last of the Michoacan Ataulfo’s, and there’s very few grown farther north.  Now is the time to feature these. Undipped, arriving light green, they are ripening beautifully!  Pricing is excellent and the new load we are receiving today is BIG fruit, with plenty of 14, 16 and 18’s – even a small amount of 10’s! 

The entire melon season should blow open in the next couple of weeks – high heat in Northern Mexico is speeding things up, and this market will collide with the first fruit out of the California desert.  Pear supply and quality are superb.  Finally, strawberry supply is on the increase, prices are drifting down as the Watsonville crop gets off the ground, although slowly. 

And the tiny veg report -  a few local surprises, with a couple of Fraser Valley items from Two EEs Organic Produce including some napa cabbage, leeks and radishes, new greens out of north Oregon, sugar snap peas now all California, and very nice grass (asparagus) from Washington.  Bruce Miller at Across the Creek has finished his organic seed sales for the season, and has a few late minute potato surprises.  We can’t believe we have four local potato listings, but it’s real!  First come first served!