An intense heat wave is coming over the Labor weekend and into Labor Day week. Temperatures will reach over 105 degrees in many growing regions including Salinas Valley and Bakersfield. The heat affects our food production, putting not only the plants and fruit at risk but the people harvesting our food.

The first of the locally grown California Bartletts are now coming out of the Sacramento and Stockton River Delta region where the hot days and the cool nights are needed to develop its sweet, juicy and delicious flavor.

The second crop of figs have the rich honey sweetness we associate with delicious figs. Figs love the hot days and warm nights and are grown mainly in the central valley around the Fresno/Madera area to up north of Sacramento in Corning.

Fresh dug fingerling new potatoes have not been cured, meaning that the skin is thin and delicate. Sunrise Organic Farm in Lompoc, CA grows beautiful red Amarosa, yellow Austrian Crescent and Purple fingerlings.

Refreshing Dragon Fruit is a delicious superfood.  It is also known as pitaya, pitahaya, or strawberry pear.  The flesh has edible seeds, and the flavor is slightly sweet and tastes like a cross between a kiwi and a pear.

A Thai sweet green mango (Mamuang Kiew Sa Wei) is one of the only varietals worldwide that is sweet when green.

Temperatures over the past week reached over 100 degrees in many growing regions including Salinas Valley and Bakersfield. The heat affects our food production, putting not only the plants and fruit at risk but the people harvesting our food.

Rhubarb is very weather dependent and needs a summer temperature of 75° or below for maximum production. Once the temperatures reach 90° or above the plant will start to wilt. The season runs from late March until the end of June. 

Now is the time to get excited, build displays and promote mangos! Mango Mania is at the height of consumer demand, better known as SUMMERTIME! In the heat of the summer, while orchards are most copious, MANGO MANIA frenzy ensues!