California Rare Fruit Growers CRFG Orange County Chapter

Charles Malki, Biologist & Plant Expert from ivorganics interviews Edgar Valdivia, of CRFGThe Leading Educator & Promoter Of Dragon Fruit In The Modern Era. Some of the fruits discussed are: Jabuticaba Fruit, Pakistan Mulberry, Trisha Dragon Fruit, Babylonian White Pomegranate, White Sapote, Pitaya & Pitahaya, Rose Apple Trees (Syzygium jambos) among many, many other fruit trees that you will see & virtually taste as we tour Edgar Valdivia's rare fruit urban food forest! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4QkUqhgQIM

Our next CRFG-OC meeting, is Thursday Oct 15th at 7:30 pm, with Dr. Aaron Fox, Cal Poly Pomona Professor, Urban and Community Agriculture, and the Cal Poly Pomona scholarship winners. We'll hear from the scholarship winners, speaking about their educational experiences and future goals, and a presentation by Dr. Aaron Fox, We look forward to hearing from Dr. Aaron Fox, as well as welcoming the Cal Poly Pomona scholarship winners as our honored guests this evening.

Ken Love - New Cultivars and Species, from the INTERNATIONAL TROPICAL FRUIT GROWERS CONFERENCE.

Mark Suiso - Mango Picking. One of the speakers from the INTERNATIONAL TROPICAL FRUIT GROWERS CONFERENCE. Always nice to know when to pick a mango.

"His target is also a saguaro, this one living and rising some two stories into the desert sky. He slides the sharp tip of the kuipad behind one of the cactus’s arms, which is crowned with bulbous fruit. "

Our next CRFG-OC meeting, is Thursday Sept 17th at 7:30 pm, with a presentation by Myka Karina D'Souza, aka The Fig Queen, from Singapore. She's a prolific fig collector with a fun fig-focused Facebook page "Fig Agro-Lab Asia" and webpage https://www.figcyclopedia.com/ What a perfect time to hear about figs, right in the middle of fig season here in OC. It'll be quite fun and informative. We're still meeting via Zoom, see our website.

You might remember Joe Hewitt from Episode #16 of 'Let's Find Out' when he lived in CA. Now he's in Hawaii, and growing many amazing things.

I like to look through these kind of exotic fruit lists, to see what I haven't tasted yet.

Carob. For those who want to order carob just to give themselves a sensory experience while watching the Thurs Aug 20th Meeting, with a presentation by Megan Lynch, on "Carob: The Rodney Dangerfield of the Rare Fruit World." Carob don't get no respect. : Azure Standard is the authorized distributor for Australian Carob Co., which is probably the highest quality producer distributed in the most countries right now. https://www.azurestandard.com//f/baking-pantry/carob/31020 A...zure has worked with Australian Carob Co in developing Uncommon Carob brand of bars and chips. I've had them and they're very high quality. Probably the best we can get in the US at the present time. Both the regular and mint taste good to me. Bob's Red Mill is probably the easiest place to order carob powder if you want to substitute it 1:1 in recipes you are already familiar with that use cocoa like brownies or crinkle cookies. https://www.bobsredmill.com/toasted-carob-powder.html Carob is *not* chocolate so don't expect it to be, but without me there baking with you it's easiest to substitute it for cocoa in a recipe and then add flavors carob pairs very well with like cinnamon, ground cloves, ground cardamom, ground ginger, or ground cayenne.... use your imagination and satisfy your own taste as to how much of which to use in your recipe.

Our next CRFG-OC meeting, is Thursday Aug 20th at 7:30 pm, with a presentation by Megan Lynch, on "Carob: The Rodney Dangerfield of the Rare Fruit World." Carob don't get no respect. Learn about carob's history in California and the world, and why it's not just a "chocolate substitute", but a very good species for us to be planting right now.. Megan is a Masters student in Horticulture & Agronomy at UC Davis, though she started her ongoing carob research in community college. Her Masters project is on epicormic buds in almonds, and she's working on launching a plant breeding podcast called Breeding Rainbow. Like everyone else, we've cancelled in-person meetings for the time being, though we're still meeting via Zoom, see our website.

"Researcher Hailing Jin became interested in the fruit because it is related to oranges, but it isn't affected by citrus greening."

CRFG-Orange County Chapter's Rick Yessayian & Kevin Hayakawa's "Let's Find Out" (No Host Rick this time) This video is about Lets Find Out- mini episode covid-lucuma