Date Heaven

My first morning here was like waking up in paradise. Palms trees everywhere and the winter temperatures reaching up to 30C/85F in mid day (up to 48C/120F in the summer). Definitely a rapid transition from my snowy Oregon experience just a week and a half ago. I'm working on a 10 acre farm in the middle of the desert region of the Coachela Valley in Southern California. The Flying Disc Ranch, is a diversified permaculture oasis that has dates and citrus (grapefruit & mandarins) as their main crop.

Date Palms interlaced with citrus trees

"Palapas for WWOOFer"

For those who where inquiring about it before I got here: Date is harvested in the fall. Therefore not many date bunches can be found hanging from the palms today. There are only a few that were not harvested due to some impurity or animals got to them, usually when the palms are still short, young and low to the ground. I have photographed them for your visual curiosity. You may also go to the Flying Disc Ranch's website to find out even more info.

Unharvested date bunches due to animal visits

this is Robert the "date guru"

Aside from doing some post harvest clean-up work (picking up old branches and such), we will be getting a building site ready for the construction of a Cob natural-building structure, to begin construction in mid February. Hopefully I'll be here till then...

Stay tuned (-:


Enjoy the photos and videos on my flickr page (click here)