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ApricotKing News
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The ApricotKing Story
The Gary Gonzales Family has been growing Blenheim Apricots for almost 80 …
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Ending 2025 Fresh
And now the end is near...... and so I face the final picking..... my friends, …
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AND................. THEY'RE OPENING THE STARTING GATES.
That spectacul taste you've been waiting a whole year for............ is …
About ApricotKing
Since 1946, the Gonzales family has grown the rare and fabulous California Blenheim apricots. Grown on our Hollister ranch, we continue to be the farmer, pruner, dryer, packer, and seller of the vanishing Blenheim apricot. We produce the best tasting apricots in the world all "Home Grown in the Flavor Zone"!
In addition to our incredible dried apricots, be sure to discover our variety of nuts (walnuts, pistachios, almonds) and other dried fruits (peaches, pears, prunes, and more). For those who believe less is more, we have dark and delicious unsulfured dried apricots. And don't forget our sweet and tart selection of apricot jams and syrups as well as our decadent chocolate covered fruits and nuts. Simply delicious! Everything here on the ranch is organically grown.
Enjoy!
Real and uncensored reviews.
AK News
Washing Cots
The 2018 crop is off the trays.Now it's time for washing. We'll wash (imagine a tumbling rotating washer with holes) eachand every apricot we cut. Just a short day of laying the washed trays of apricots in the sun......and it's on to packing.
Scraping & Sizing the Apricots
We've spent the entire week scraping the fruit off the trays. This consists of 10 men pushinga paddle/scraper on a moving tray line. Trays are dumped into several bins......The bins are dumped into a machines that shakes and shakes the dried cots. They fall into holes according to sizes. Looks like more than 70% of [...]
Pants on Fire
Seems I lied.....the end of the season is inches away..........but the fruit I still ripening on the trees.Got another few tons out there....and cool weather (like we wish we had two weeks ago).......leaves us fresh fruit until the 25th. The finish line is the 25th, you say???? It's a crazy year. Some years we're finished on [...]
Last Four Days .......
By Wednesday all the fresh will be gone.We will have stripped the trees and cut every last one of the lovely (sunkissed) Blenheimsfor the 2018 season....They'll dry for 3-5 days.Fruit assessment: smallish, no large fruit at all. tasty as always Sun damaged from too much heat while they were still green. Tonage: disappointing...not the harvest [...]
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen......Nobody Knows.....
Yikes....the sun hit us at just the wrong time. Five days of 95 degree heat hasruined our crop. I've never seen sunburned fruit....brown wounds....on 90% of the2018 crop......Still tastes great, but it's small and wounded. When it dries it willlook partially brown. I'll call it Sunkissed Blenheims......but we're terribly disappointed thatMother Nature has dealt us this [...]
And we're off and running......
The Beautiful Blenheim season has begun......and of course, we're having a heat wave. ha!Blenheims are picked in three separate pickings....the first is where you tip the trees (just the farthest-outfruit) . The second pick is our big one....where all the fruit is ready at one time. T(hink of theKentucky Derby out there) The final pick is [...]
Blenheim Season 2018
And now we're ready. First pick of the season starts tomorrow and will last until July 18 weather permitting. All the markets will have freshfruit for sale in small quantities. You need to preorder cases by calling or texting Patti @ 831 801-5275. Feel free to leave a message.....my hands are always busy.Because this is [...]
Still waiting for that first pick
It's hot...97 degrees.....then it's cold 65 degrees......so the fruit still is not ripe.Looking for a July 1 first pick....hardly anything prior.
Washing boxes and trays
Getting ready for the harvest involves washing 2000+ picking boxes.We also have 7000+ trays to wash and dry. Lots of hands, lot of work,tons of preparation for the first day of cutting. Predicting a few cots in before July 1..........weather permitting.