We're in the middle of California and happen to be near Fresno! It's June which is the perfect time to take a trip down the Fresno Fruit Trail! We had a lot of fun going to a lot of different places back in 2008 with Theresa's parents, and I hope we can go back to a few of the places we loved before! Let's check it out!
Our first stop, as we drove towards Fresno, was a random fruit stand at the side of the road from Gerawan Farms.
You guys are so silly.
Theresa ended up getting a sampler of lots of different fruits. Hopefully they'll be delicious.
Next on our fruit trail is the Friesen Family Farm!
They have so many different peaches and nectarines that are ripe and ready to eat!
They have a crazy amount of varieties that are ripe from mid May to early September.
The ladies here were so nice! Very friendly and willing to let us sample as many different things as we wanted.
Well when there's a lot of different varieties of something, you know we want to try them all! Look for a taste test coming soon! And the prices here are pretty outstanding! We got this full box weighing 20-25 pounds and costing only $13! So 65 cents a pound! Not bad at all!
Our next stop is one that Theresa has been looking forward to for years and years. Any time we get blueberries from the store, Theresa always compares them to the blueberries she got from The Berry Lady back in 2008.
(Picture from 2008) Berry Lady Gayle gave us special attention back in 2008, taking us out to the fields and showing us all the berries, then taking us behind the scenes to the berry sorting line and packing! It was awesome!
She's got a special deal going on right now. A gallon bag filled with blueberries for $20, normally $25.
We went ahead and bought a gallon bag of them, just to make sure they're as good as we remember.
They're fantastic! The kids can be picky sometimes and they don't hold back.
And so since they were so good, and because Theresa loves them so much, we made sure to get another bag of them so she doesn't run out.
Gayle then told us to wait just a minute and then came back with something special.
Her son also continued the blueberry business and came up with his own variety called the Early Duchess. They were harvested a little while ago, so they've been kept in the freezer. But the size of the berries and the flavor of them are amazing!
In the back is a big processing plant. All these peaches didn't make the cut and are going back to the orchards to put their nutrients back into the soil.
(Picture from 2008) These were so good to Theresa back then that she bought a quart of them and before our next stop, had eaten almost all of them, making us turn around and go get more!
And look who it is! Gayle! The Berry Lady herself! I showed her the picture above and she said she remembered us! How I don't know, since that was so long ago, but we had a fun chat, and told her how much we loved her blueberries.
He actually had someone from Costco come try them, and told him to plant as many of those as he can, because they'll buy them all!
She sent us along with a pint of them, and they were gone before we got to our next stop. Some things never change. Gayle told us not to wait 14 years before we come visit again!
We stopped by their stand on the side of the road and grabbed a bag of 10 ears.
While chatting with Berry Lady Gayle about where we had visited so far, she suggested that if we really liked Peaches with a fresh natural taste, versus a grocery store taste, head over to Naylor's Organic U-Pick a few miles down the street. We did just that!
There we met Mrs. Nori! She walked us through what to look for when we were picking peaches and sent us off the the fields to find them.
We'll be picking about 5 pounds worth of fruit, to fill a bucket, but it's easier if each kid gets their own. A bucket of U-Pick peaches costs $9 here.
And here they are! Ready for us to pick!
Ripe and ready to eat!
That looks like a good one Alli.
I found one up high.
Everyone was able to pick a few that they liked.
When we went to pay, the kids saw that there were these little jars of honey. The kids were enamored by it, I think because of the honey stick on it. Mrs. Nori told them how a beekeeper asked if he could put his hives near the back of the orchard, and in return she'd get some honey. The beekeeper said that these hives have been producing the most and best honey out of all his other hives. That, plus knowing that they were helping out the bees made them happy to part with $5 of their money to buy some honey.
Theresa came prepared for sampling a lot of fruit today. Plates and knives in the car, plus water to watch off any fruits too. We were quick to slice up one of the freshly picked peaches, and they were delicious! Just like a peach should taste, with a good texture to it too.
When we got home, Theresa got to work putting all her fruit away.
The orchard smells amazing! The scent of warm peach perfume is filling the air.
I think we bought somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 pounds of fruit today! Couple that with the 25 pounds of oranges we're still carrying around from Orangeland RV, and we have 75 pounds of fresh fruit in the RV that we need to eat through soon!
For dinner, we had to make something that will go good with that Huckabay Farms corn that we bought.
Chili dogs sounds good to me!
And the corn? Tasty as well. Crisp and fresh. Sweet (though not the sweetest I've had).
The kids enjoyed it too!
And for a treat afterwards, how about all those fruits from Gerawan Farms?
Today was a really fun day, being back on the Fresno Fruit Trail and tasting all sorts of yummy things!
That Fresno Fruit Trail sounds like "fresh fruit" heaven for fruit-seeking visitors! The fruit sounds so refreshing and delicious (those taste tests will be enjoyable ones :-) ); and the prices are like a steal for the buyer, compared to the nearby grocery store (try buying 20-25 lbs of fresh, sweet fruit for $13 there...won't happen!) Quite a story with the Berry Lady and the blueberries...the Early Duchess blueberries sound like a real winner, and you all got to sample it before Costco shoppers! Now that looks like filling chili dogs :-)...mmmmm, sweet fresh corn-on-the-cob is the perfect side dish in the summer and with those chili dogs. EOM
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