Apricots – The fruit of a friendship among farmers.

We are not just happy. We are very happy and proud of the planting of apricots cultivated by our friend Carlos in Valencia. All began in 2015 when Carlos and Gonzalo met on the plantation of „Naranjas del Carmen“. Apart from being a farmer, Carlos is an inventor and his genius invention is a sprinkler that prevents the freezing of fruit trees by spraying the water with micro-pulses in orchards with a low water pressure. This inventive farmer found out that spraying drops of water on the fruits in very cold winter nights creates an icy layer, which prevents the cold from entering the fruit and thereby freezing it from the inside out. Hence, this technique of frost protection can be used including in areas with very low water pressure.

Carlos has shared his invention with Gonzalo to prevent the freezing of the oranges of “El Carmen”. In return, Gonzalo let Carlos in on his CrowdFarming experience and offered to join this movement. Carlos has an apricot plantation in the mountains. However, he lacked motivation for it in the last couple of years because the price he got for the fruits on the traditional market could not cover his expenses for cultivating them. Thereupon, Gonzalo suggested to join CrowdFarming as a producer of apricots without the use of pesticides or herbicides. Carlos accepted the challenge and now, after two years of work, we can offer you the first apricots of „Monte de Carlos“.

When and how are the apricots harvested?

The harvest season of apricots is quite short. It starts usually in the second half of May and lasts until the beginning of June. The apricot harvest is pure manual labour. It is necessary to wake up early to start harvesting the fruits at sunrise, around 06:15 a.m. It is very important to pick the fruits as long as they are still cool from the night. At 02:00 p.m. all apricots of the day are harvested – exactly when the heat of the day warms up the fruits. If they were picked in this state, they would not survive the journey unharmed.

Did you know, that…

while thinning more than half of the apricots on the trees are thrown to the ground because the fruits are already ripe when they are picked? Without thinning the apricots would not grow enough and accumulate only little pulp. The fruit would so to speak almost entirely consist of its pit.