Our English walnut trees, variety Hartley, are 19 years old and we now have leaf canopy closure in most of our 8 acre orchard. Our first commercial harvest in 1991 was only 450 lbs/acre. As our trees grew, the harvests have increased, but to our surprise, in alternate years, harvests can be quite low. In 1997 the harvest was a whopping 1,700 lbs/acre, but less than half that the next year. Other orchards (and many nut crops and wild nuts such as acorns) have similar "mast effect" patterns. 1999, was our largest crop, 16,000 lbs, 2000 was smaller, abt 12,000 lbs and 2001 was a disaster with a late spring freeze-- virtually no crop at all. However, our 2002 crop was our biggest ever, nearly 17,000 pounds, and this year looks quite good but not as big as last. 

We are a Registered Organic Grower with the state of California [#57-0075] and use no pesticides, herbicides or manufactured fertilizers. Our organic crop is certified by California Certified Organic Farmers, one of the largest organic certifying organizations in the world. We rely on a nitrogen-fixing leguminous cover crop and organic composts to maintain soil fertility and on mowing to keep weeds under control. This past year our cover crop helped reduce mowing chores until mid summer, then Sam got lots of tractor time. This year has not required any huge capital expenditures and our organic wholesale buyer, Dixon Ridge Farms, for the bulk of our crop (sales through this web site are only a small, but important and growing, part of our farming business) is awaiting our harvest. Sam is getting used to retirement from the graduate ecology faculty of the University of California at Davis and he has become more than just a "gentleman (i.e., money-losing) farmer". One of his favorite activities, when not driving the tractor, is hiking in the hills west of the Capay Valley.

October 2003 As I (Sam) write this paragraph, in mid-October 2003, I look out my office window at a huge crop of walnuts-- not a record but there will be plenty. After the 2001 complete crop failure followed by last years record crop and our first paycheck as a certified (not merely registered) organic grower we are just about out of the redink category.  Our minimum package size will continue to be 5 pounds.  We will not be offering walnuts in the shell as we have found proper storage for in-shell walnuts beyond our capabilities-- they require large amounts of cold storage space. We also are offering neither garlic nor lavender-- those experiments, while successful and fun in botanical terms were less than successful in a business sense-- the effort was exhausting!  However due to a huge demand we will continue to offer "walnutty granola" although at a more realistic price-- former pricing did not cover our material costs, much less labor! 

13 May 2004 It's been a busy winter and spring but most of the chores are now behind me and I look out on a green, leafy orchard undulating in todays mild southern breeze. The first chore of the winter (actually, late fall) is sowing the cover crop of vetch, clover and Medic legumes but this year I was determined to repair the old Tye seed drill first. This necessitated finding the parts-- Tye dealers seemed to have dried up in this part of California. And the repairs weren't simple, once parts came, but finally I got the crop sowed-- late, not until January. Then I had 25 bare root saplings to plant, replacing mortality due to deep bark canker (caused by the bacterium Erwinia rubrifaciens). This meant first putting my three-point tractor-mount backhoe into service and removing the dead trees, some over a foot in diameter. This device puts quite a strain on the lower linkage and, during the first tree removal, I heard a loud crack and the 3/4" cross-shaft holding the links had snapped. Another repair job. I removed dead and planted new trees all winter long, then switched to repairing irrigation headers and sprinklers as the rains ended and the soil began to dry. Finished the irrigation repairs but had to mow the waist to shoulder high grasses (the legumes had not germinated well) first. Switch from the back hoe to the flail mower on the old John Deere and flail away-- takes about 4-5 hrs to mow each direction in my 8 acres, but the first mowing is always slow. Finally the first irrigation, about a month ago, just as trees are putting out first male and, a few days later, female flowers (these are wind pollinated and are not showy like insect pollinated flowers; the leaves come out a few days after the flowers). Then back to tree planting. Anyway, yesterday I planted the last two saplings, though there are still some big, dead trees to be removed-- I'll wait until the roots rot and soften a little. Now it's just mow one weekend and irrigate the next until harvest time approaches next September. And I've got time to do some hiking in the beautiful N. California woodland hills which surround our valley.

19 November 2004  Finally all the autumn chores are done-- harvesting, hulling and drying and shelling.  We shipped over 8000 lbs to our wholesale processor and sent over 1000 to our organic shellers, Maichel  Ranch in Yolo, California.  Tuesday I picked up the shelled meats and yesterday began packing them in 5 lb. lots for labelling and shipping.  Today, a trip to the Post Office as soon as I finish this note.  We mailed out flyers to our previous customers a week or two ago and have seen quite a few orders already.  This year we have revived the "gift pack" of 3 lbs walnuts and 1 lb of walnut-rich granola for $25.00-- it was very popular in past years and many people asked about it.  We're looking forward to your order-- it'll usually be shipped within 24 hours of receipt.

2 November 2005  The orchard is mostly bare of walnuts, as of yesterday, and is ready for the gleaners-- Caroline's grad students from UC Davis will come this weekend. And there is plenty to glean-- the orchard badly needs ground planing and pruning, so my work is far from done this year. A rough ground surface and some high grass around the trees always leaves lots of nuts for pick up after the machine sweeper and vacuum. The web page is now revised for this year-- a good days work on the computer-- my shoulders ache as if I had been raking-- and I've added the granola recipe to the recipes page.

I hope you are not dismayed by the price increase ($6/lb --> $7) but the general price of walnuts, and especially organic walnuts, is up this year. Probably attributable to the discovery that their alpha-linolenic acid content, which can be (arguably?) metabolised to omega-3 fatty acids, are heart-healthy. I'm not arguing. Over the nearly 15 years we've been farming, our long term $$ deficit is still in the thousands. I'm determined to continue to subsidise the American walnut diet but wouldn't mind closing the gap.

We're really pleased that we can offer almonds from our neighboring orchard here in the Capay Valley-- 3Docs is a young orchard operated by our fellow retirees, David Markham and Jane Stallings, both former academics like myself. I just picked them up at the Sacramento airport, back from teaching a 2 week course on teaching assessment methods in Sao Paulo, Brazil, sponsored by the World Bank. Neighbors like these make life interesting in the CV-- David plays bass instruments-- stringed or brass-- and joins others, musically inclined, sometimes here at WCR.

We lost one of the most talented and versatile of these, Will Baker, at the end of the summer. Will played the banjo and dobro, wrote a few good books, raised fine beef cattle, roamed the hills on horseback and kept the radical right troglodytes at bay. And sang a fine tenor cajun-french lyric as well. He'd quit smoking for over 15 years but it still caught up with him. We mourn him and miss his big grin and lean, lanky carcass.

Well, the shadows outside my window are getting long-- the custom is that happy hour starts when the western Blue Ridge hills shadow the ranch and ends when they climb to the top of the Capay Hills to the east. They're climbing, so I'd better get busy if I'm to have time to toast you all-- thanks for your patronage and I'm wishing you a fine autumn season with good friends, family and fortune.

26 November 2006  It's a rainy Sunday afternoon here in the Capay Valley of northern California. The cover crop is seeded in the orchard, as of last Tuesday-- I thought it would rain so I didn't irrigate, which meant I didn't have to repair a dozen or so broken sprinkler heads. But the rain held off until today and I put off the irrigation and now here, at last, is the welcome water from the sky, to save me from sprinkler repairs and germinate my cover seed. When we lived in Seattle (1971-91) I always cherished the few sunny days and rushed to do outdoor chores and games-- I'm still in the habit of feeling like I should be outdoors whenever the sun is shining. Consequently I put off to extreme the indoor chores, like updating this web page, in sunny California. And, I appreciate and am gladdened by these things that we humans do not have under our control and must simply take in our stride.

At the end of last year's season we did a heavy pruning, long overdue. That meant that this years crop would be down, and down it is, about 60% of last years harvest. But a good crop never-the-less, at around 7,000 pounds. However we continue to see tree mortality in our orchard. The maintenance chores are not any lighter and our economies of scale, compared to some of my neighbors who harvest 1000+ acres, are non-existent. As I think I've commented in past years, we are a net subsidizer of American walnut consumption to the tune of around $1000 per year, on average. So this year is decision time for the economics of walnut ranching here at WCR. Barring some unforeseen changes, this will be our last wholesale commercial harvest-- in future years we'll limit ourselves to our small-scale retail web sales. The walnuts I will buy from my larger-scale neighboring walnut farmers, those who are certified organic growers like myself.

This year I have supplemented our old-fashioned Hartley variety with a small quantity of Tulare variety (certified organic) nut meats from Dan Martinez, a large grower near the town of Yolo, about 20 miles from WCR. Some of our retail buyers I will ask about sending a few of these Tulares to supplement our own Hartley nut meats. If you are interested in trying them and comparing to the Hartleys, let us know in your order. The Tulare meats are generally slightly larger and lighter colored than the Hartleys. They tend to crack out in larger pieces, more whole halves. Same price. And, in spite of my proclamation in an earlier edition of the home page, I have obtained some almonds from neighboring 3 Docs farm, in their second year of the 3-year transition to certified organic status. Check the order page to purchase these almonds.

So that's the news from WCR this Fall. I continue to lead hikes around the Yolo/Napa/Lake/Solano/Colusa county area-- check out the Yolohiker newsletter here. Caroline contemplates joining me in retirement from the U of California, Davis at some time in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime we keep the home fires burning, enjoy our good neighbors and friends and are grateful for our continuing peace and fortune-- we wish the same for you. Stay in touch.

7 January 2007 
Well, the decision is all but made-- we have had our last commercial harvest of Hartley walnuts at Winter Creek Ranch. I have sowed the cover crop and the little seed leaves are showing in the winter sun out my studio window. However, I will not water the trees this spring and summer, saving hundreds of dollars in PG&E electricity costs, and will not mow except to whack down the cover crop sometime in late spring. This will also save hundreds of hours of my time in back-breaking work, repairing sprinklers and irrigation valves and riding (and repairing) the tractor and mower. And thousands in harvest, washing and drying costs.

For our faithful retail customers, we plan to become a re-seller of organic walnuts from our neighboring certified organic farms who do not have a retail operation. Mainly, Tulare walnuts, as mentioned above. If I can find organic Hartley walnuts from a large producer I will attempt to secure some for those of you who love this variety (as do Caroline and I). But it's unlikely.

If you would like Hartley walnuts and are in our vicinity next fall, October or later, stop by and you can shake the trees and pick up all you like-- they'll be producing for a while but will gradually become senescent (like me). We started with nearly 400 trees two decades ago and are now down to about 200. Some are big and robust, but only a few-- many more have succumbed to disease and I will remove a few more dead boles and branches this winter. I see one down on the ground right now-- its roots rotted away and no longer supporting the heavy trunk.

Thanks for all the patronage, walnut orders large and small and encouraging emails over the years! We'll try the re-seller route for a while and try to keep you in walnuts.

Sincerely, Caroline and Sam Bledsoe

....and our stable of ranch cats who keep the California giant pocket gopher (probably Thomomys bottae) under control (organically): the girls are Princess Slasher, Sportster and SweetFace; the Patriarch, Rumsey.  Taxi-cat succumbed to natural causes, at about 18 yrs of age, last summer and Cash likewise, but in her prime. And we have two new youngsters, Anthony and Cleopatra (Tony and Cleo) dashing about the place and harassing the older cats.

12 November 2007 
I have a confession to make-- I am addicted to growing walnuts-- and harvesting, and pruning the trees, and mowing the orchard, and maintaining the irrigation system, and repairing the tractor and all the other little and big chores necessary to keep this little orchard producing. In short, I'm a walnut-grower-oholic. In spite of my declaration last January about our last commercial harvest, here it is harvest season and I've done it again.

We had a slightly smaller crop this year, though all the orchards in our area were down somewhat, but I diverted a few more pounds from our wholesaler to retail sales-- maybe this will help the bottom line a little. Everything I said last winter about our problems with disease and senescent trees is true, but we still do have a viable harvest in spite of it all.

Last weekend we had our annual orchard gleaning-- about a dozen of our friends and neighbors (some from out of state) joined us for a weekend of scouring the ground under the trees for the walnuts missed by the commercial harvest machines. The haul amounted to nearly 200 pounds. Our hand-cranked walnut cracker was busy and those not picking the ground or cranking sat around a large table and separated nut meats from cracked shells. A few bottles of local vine product (from our neighbors at Capay Valley Vineyards) lubricated the process and vegies and viands from the BBQ grill kept us all fueled. It was a sunny but not over-warm, fine California autumn day. A very satisfying day. Anyone in the vicinity this time of year is welcome to join in our annual gleaning party-- drop us an email if you'd like an invite next year.

Sincerely, Caroline and Sam Bledsoe (and all the ranch cats)
 
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