Peach Blackberry Crisp...because it's amazing!

Peach-Blackberry Crisp (stolen from webmd for peach raspberry crisp)

A fruit crisp offers the luscious flavor of a fresh fruit pie without the fuss and calories of a crust. Celebrate the arrival of summer peaches with this rich-tasting crisp. The nut-studded topping works great with other fruit combinations too.

Ingredients

·      2 pounds peaches, peeled (if desired, see Tip), pitted and sliced (5 cups), or frozen slices

·      1 pint blackberries, fresh or frozen

·      2 tablespoons granulated sugar

·      1 tablespoon lemon juice

·      2/3 cup whole-wheat flour

·      1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats, (not instant)

·      1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

·      1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

·      Pinch of salt

·      1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces

·      1 tablespoon canola oil

·      3 tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate

·      1 tablespoon chopped almonds, or walnuts

Instructions

Step 1

Preheat oven to 375°F. Coat an 8-inch-square baking dish (or similar 1 1/2- to 2-quart dish) with cooking spray.

Step 2

To prepare filling, combine peaches, raspberries, granulated sugar and lemon juice in a large bowl; toss to coat. Place the filling in the prepared baking dish. Cover with foil. Bake for 20 minutes.

Step 3

Meanwhile, make topping. Mix flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl with a fork. Add butter and blend with a pastry blender or your fingertips. Add oil and stir to coat. Add orange juice concentrate and blend with your fingertips until the dry ingredients are moistened.

Step 4

After 20 minutes, stir the fruit filling and sprinkle the topping evenly over it. Sprinkle with almonds (or walnuts). Bake, uncovered, until the fruit is bubbly and tender and the topping is lightly browned, 20 to 25 minutes more. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Tips

Tip: Dip peaches in boiling water for 30 or 40 seconds to loosen their skins. Let cool slightly, then slip off skins with a paring knife. Or just let them ripen to perfection and peel the skins off!

FUN at the FESTIVAL!

Hayrides to the orchard were very popular

and everyone enjoyed picking peaches

and seeing the farm.

Matt and Willy made some great smoothies!

Anya cooked up some great peach recipes:

Peach Gazpacho, Baked Peaches with cookie filling

and Salsa. Susan and Curt kept the chopped peaches coming and helped with cooking questions.

Dogs really had their day.

Wow, it was an Amazing Maze!








.

Pick Your Own Blackberries

were a big hit!

Amanda did some amazing face painting!











No pressure today, everybody just enjoyed the day.

Can't go wrong with Peach ice cream.

Poppy got inventive with Raspberry Peach and that was a big hit!

Very Early Peaches

We have a new early yellow peach and this year it's REALLY early.
I expect to be open on Friday, July 2 from 9-5:30 or we sell out.
So only tell your best friends this week.
We'll open with a good quantity of Sugar May in mid-July...
The Apricots are also going to be picked and will be available on Friday as well.
Kind of fun to have fruit for the holiday weekend!

Won't be long before the Raspberries and Blackberries are ready.
We gotta get the nets up but the boys have been thinning the peaches
so they have time to grow before the season begins.
Lots to do yet.

Clean up

Spring 2010

As a farmer, I should believe that spring will come. But I'm always surprised when it does!
The new peach/nectarine block on the lower farm looks great as do the tunnel strawberries
- in fact there's a few blossoms here and there to tempt us.

End of Summer? No Way!!!

We are still picking summer fruit - peaches, nectarines, raspberries and blackberries. How can it be time for school to start? We did pick the first 3 apples - Zestar, Ginger Gold and Sansa.

This week we'll pick the Gala Apple. We're picking the JH Hale yellow peaches, still picking yellow Nectarines and the white peaches this week are NJ252 (before they named it) and

Lady Nancy. I like Lady N because it has a yellow racing stripe which seems very daring in a white peach!

We are missing our college kids - Hillary, Liz, Eric, Austin, Casey D. and Kaleigh but wishing them the best as they pursue their education. We still have "the boys" for a few more days - Michael, Michael and David - until High School starts. We should see about Home Schooling ...

Anyway Casey S.is here for a few weeks so be sure to say "HI" when you're here - and then it's just us Regulars.

Peaches are delicious!

We had 2 beautiful days Friday and Saturday. The peaches are picking much better and we expect to harvest a lot of Sun Hi and Loring this week, both great for putting up.

The raspberries are coming full tilt and the blackberries have really sweetened up. We are definately planning on a good Peach Festival next Sat. the 15th. The Ernie's Choice should be really nice for picking if we leave them hanging this week. I know t-storms are forecast, but it'd be nice to just see some gentle rain this week instead. Bill Short has volunteered to lend his hay wagon again so we can do hayrides up to the peach orchard. All our friends and family are setting aside their Saturday plans to help out at the grill, entertainment, ice cream making and general being helpful. Thanks to all who have volunteered!!

Sam, Hillary, Casey, Chelsea and I finished the Tshirts for the festival.

This year we designed and printed our own. WOW!! They'll be available for sale on Saturday. Plan on spending some time seeing the farm and enjoying the day. We'll start around 9:30 and end around 4:30.

Gary says the Zestar apples are almost ready to pick!! These little trees have a huge apple crop...

Donut Peaches!

We have yellow and white donuts. They are super sweet, fun to eat and only around for a week. Be sure to get by to try them.

While you're here say "hi" to Mr. Frog. He lives next to the parking lot in a puddle (one of many puddles these days) We haven't been able to get a picture of his roommate, but if you sneak up on them by the shed you can sometimes spot them both.
We're finally starting to pick the Red Haven peaches. These are the first of the main season yellows. There'll be more to follow in the next couple weeks.

PEACHES!

Wow, the heat is really bringing in the fruit. We're picking the white nectarines, white peaches and 2 varieties of yellow peaches.
As usual we have to send the customers outside to eat their peaches, they're just too juicy!!!

Next year's strawberries.

Next on the list is to get all the strawberry beds renovated and ready for next year. Gary mows off the plants, then runs over the rows with the rototiller with the center tines removed. This narrows the rows back to the main plant. The newly planted strawberries are being hoed again. This random sunflower was too fun to hoe out so now it's blooming.

The Ginger Gold apple trees are in the background. They are usually early, around the second week of August.

We're waiting for the bird netting to arrive. It'll go over the blackberries first, then we'll figure out how to cover the raspberry tunnels.

The first Early Yellow Peaches are ready! We're open at the farm every day but Sunday. The Sugar May is the first white peach and we expect to pick that closer to the end of this week. It's still a little firm. White Nectarines are about 10 days out.

Peach bloom

Wow, after a couple sunny days (finally) we see some bloom in the peaches and nectarines. The blossoms are varying shades of pink depending on variety. Even the donut peaches have different colors of pink. The white nectarines are the earliest and they are so fragrant it makes your head hurt.

Wish I could fly up a few more feet to get the whole orchard in the picture...but the top of my car will have to do!

Is it Spring yet?

The peaches are pruned and they almost look alive the way they reach out with their branches. Lots of room for sunshine to hit the peaches and make them sweet and juicy.







Gary and Michael and Mike Hahn (our additional high school hired hand) raked all the straw off the berries. The rain over the weekend perked them up and now we just need some sunshine. People keep asking what the season looks like, but really, it's promising, but too early to tell. We'll see bloom in April on almost everything and have a good idea what will have a chance.

My favorite job (so to speak) this time of year is pruning the blackberries. It looks like a jungle so you just take a deep breath and wade in. I'm cutting out all the dead wood and tying up the nice fruiting canes to the support wires. It's a week long project. Then I have to start on the Black Raspberries. This is NOT my favorite chore as they are prickly and nasty. I've said I need to be in a Zen state to be near them, let alone prune! The other farm chores are cleaning up the raspberry plants in the tunnels and raking all the tree prunings out so Gary can mow/chop them up.



This is really the time of year when we get to finish the "other" chores. Like painting rooms, building doors at home and taking time to play games together. A real calm before the storm.