REJECT UNIFORMITY, FIND REAL FLAVOR IN STONE FRUIT

VARIETAL DIVERSITY

Nick's season is a carefully choreographed series of explosions. With each of his 100 varieties only ripe for ten days at the most. When he started, this number was closer to 70. He’s been adding new varieties each year, growing diversity and filling in gaps — including 10 new plum varieties and “a few weird one’s sprinkled in” like an Italian Ice Peach that he grafted last year.

GROWING FOR FLAVOR

“If it's got my name on it, you can count on it tasting delicious, even if it doesn't look picture perfect.”

When we spoke with Nick last week, he mentioned that his approach to varietal selection differs greatly from the norm for commercial growers. For them, all that matters is the size of the fruit, and how well it will withstand transit. In his words “they don’t even taste it!” For Nick, all he cares about is how flavorful the fruit is — sometimes this means selecting fruit other growers forgo as terrible due to size, russeting and scarring, “for [him] its the perfect variety because it eats exceptionally well.”

EDUCATION

Nick enjoys talking to the people that are either buying it or have a really close relationship with the people using the fruit. This allows him to educate consumers about the sizing, or diversity of flavor profiles in his fruit, and encourage people to ditch notions of uniformity. Beyond educating people, Nick loves getting feedback: hearing which varieties taste great, or in some cases, which don’t shine quite as much.

“If you grow in the right manner, you can get feedback directly from the people that get your food whereas if you just are a wholesale farmer you just grow this, you grow your crop, and then some broker sells that and you'd have no idea where your fruit goes.”

THINNED

He goes the extra step of thinning his trees, this year that meant more than usual — 90% of the fruit — as Nick reported a record year for bloom set on his trees, from ample rains. By thinning his plants, the remaining fruits do not have to compete so tightly for nutrients, allowing each to reach its full flavor potential. Each tree has a potential sugar level that it divides between its fruits: the fewer on the branch, the higher the sugar concentration in each fruit. Most conventional growers do not thin their trees beyond what is absolutely necessary, prioritizing yield over flavor.

RIPE

Nick passes over his trees multiple times a season, only ever picking fruit that has reached full maturity on the branch. Mainstream commercial channels would not accept fruit in this form: on top of all the extra work, its delicate, short shelf life makes it impossible for most retailers to handle.