Winter Greetings and Farm Update 2026!

During our exceptionally wet and stormy October and through the first half of November we were a bit on the edge of our seats wondering when the storms would break so we could go out and take our winter inventory of scions that our eager customers were waiting for. Fortunately the rains stopped and as Thanksgiving approached, we updated our lists of 1,000+ varieties, took stock of new varieties to add to it and started our tag printing. Luckily our son was home from college and we could visit and spend time together as we sorted and alphabetized all the tags.

Luckily by the last week of November the pomegranates had lost their leaves and pruning could begin! We are in the thick of it now and currently working full time with pruners in hand. So far we have completed the pomegranates, Asian pears, persimmons, jujubes, elderberry, honeyberry, Japanese and European plums and are starting on the peaches, cherries and other stone fruits.

It is a marathon this time of year and with the weather predictions looking like only 1 more week of mild sunny weather before the rains settle in here again, we are now putting ourselves into overdrive to get the many remaining trees pruned. We know that many of you are eager for your orders to be shipped as soon as we can!. As the prunings come in we are cutting to size, retaking inventory, labeling and bagging them alphabetically to put in our commercial refrigerators. In January once all the wood is in and in the refrigerators we will put our newly updated inventory on the website. We are always trying to finish up pruning by the end of the first week of January so we can start shipping orders to the milder climates of California, Texas and the South East.

Farm wise we have been rich in Fall winter fruit. Gorging on Comice and Bosc pears, tree ripened Granny Smith and Cripps Pink Apples, and Coffee Cake Persimmons. We were very excited to harvest our first Carobs, and look forward to trialing our new varieties from the Coit Collection we brought back from Australia, which flowered for the first time this year!

And we're enthusiastic to try out our new electronic pruning shears gifted to us by our friend Joe from Planting Justice who visited us this Fall! We are fond of our pruning saws and felco 13's, but the old hands could use help with cutting the larger harder wood like the honey locust!

Take care and we hope your winter pruning goes well!