Video: Churchill Orchard’s Native Planter: Mike Sullivan
Since Mike came to Churchill Orchard 13 years ago, he has steadily embroidered its citrus and avocado groves with a crazy quilt of native plants. There is a method to this madness.
Meet our resident plant freak and deep thinker.
I thought last week that we would be in the Ojai Sunday Farmers’ Market starting January 12, but alas it ain’t a gonna happen – some of us got a little sick, all of us had too much to do, we are affected by the tragedy of the fires in LA — what with one thing and another we’ll be there starting January 19.
The kishus came through the winds fine, and we’ll be very happy to start selling them to you!
Gael and I went to Yosemite in September and got married!
Gael has been working with me at the Sunday Ojai Farmer’s Market starting now on her 5th year. Here we are last year with our friend Doug LaBarre’s 1953 Chevy 3/4T truck, which he was kind enough to let us use while our regular truck was out for repairs.
We start again at the Ojai Market on Sunday January 12, and will be there every Sunday until mid-May or until the fruit runs out, whichever comes first. We will start with plenty of Seedless Kishus, also with tree-ripe limes, lemons, meyer lemons, cocktail grapefruit, also with bacon, fuerte and possibly Mexicola Grande avocados. If you’re in town, please come visit us at our stand – we’ll be glad to see you!
This time of year the sun aligns perfectly with the orchard rows, making sunset a delicious time of day. The kishus are almost ready and the pixies have begun to show themselves on the trees, relieving my annual anxiety that we won’t have any fruit for you all.
Happy New Year – may 2025 treat us all well!
When we saw it, we just went ga-ga over Rintaro’s citrus parfait.
We were consumed with longing to taste it.
Yes that’s some of our fruit in there.
Sometimes it seems like the fruit leads a more glamorous life than we do.
That’s only fair, the fruit has got all the talent.
Estimating crop size – it’s necessary, but tricky, especially in a year with a light crop.
Jim Churchill runs it down…. a 3-minute short video.
We just noticed – January 2024 is the 20th Anniversary of the birth of our little “Little Wonder” Kishu mandarin brand. It kinda snuck up on us. But we thought we would take a moment and celebrate the little guy.
Kishu mandarin has a history far older than its rebranding as “Kishu” in 1880s Japan.
We encountered the Kishu in 2000 on a tour of Citrus Variety Collection conducted by Ottillia Biehr. We thought it was cute and might make a nice little Christmas snack.
So we planted 50 Kishu trees (special order, because no one was growing the Kishu), and waited for them to grow.
As soon as we had fruit, we took the first Kishus to Bill Fujimoto at Monterey Market.
Bill had introduced our Pixie tangerines to his customers, and we thought we had another great mandarin to share.
Things went well. We planted more Kishus.
Chez Panisse took up the Kishu and people who dine there started to write nice things about it.
Things got a little out of hand. People started calling the house, wanting shipments.
We built a primitive system for taking orders (ht Formdesk!), and the Little Wonder was born.
Our first mail order was packed on the dining room table (no barn yet).
We entered the Logo Era, the short-lived Recipe Era (Ham a la Kishu?), the Kishu Merch Era (that Kishu apron was fire), and the Meme Era (surfing Kishu bear!)
And people kept writing nice things.
Things went (mostly) well. And here we are.
It’s time to do a little roundup of the nice articles that have made us a part of the fruit lover’s world. We’re grateful to these writers and editors. Some of you are here because of them.
Shoutout to David Karp, Ruth Reichl, José Andres, Lisa Morehouse, Kit Stolz, Sarah Henry, Alejandra Borunda, and Russ Parsons (!)
Mandarin Oranges, Rising Stars of the Fruit Bowl
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/dining/a14751523/kishu-miniature-tangerines/
https://joseandres.substack.com/p/hey-mr-tangerine-man
https://www.bonappetit.com/story/kishu-oranges
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=53643
We had a block of Pixie trees that turned out to be growing on the wrong rootstock.
Turns out that the wrong rootstock for Pixies is a good rootstock for Kishus.
So we are grafting – or “topworking” – them over to Kishus.
Yes, more Kishu trees.
Grafting? Yes – here’s a brief introduction.
Grafting is an ancient horticultural practice where tissues of two plants are joined so that they grow together as a single plant.
The top part of the grafted plant is called the scion; the lower part is called the rootstock.
The rootstock provides the roots, anchorage, and support for the scion. Rootstock can also provide resistance to pests and diseases, or tolerance to specific environmental conditions.
The scion provides the desired characteristics of the tree, such as fruit variety, flower color, or growth habit.
The bud union is the point where the scion and rootstock are joined.
In a successful graft, the vascular tissues of the two plants grow together.
If the bud union fails, the graft will not be successful.
To topwork our Pixies into Kishus, Sam Garibay, the skilled artisan who does the actual grafting, will “scaffold” or prune the Pixie tree back, leaving only a few branches of 2-3 inch diameter or smaller. He does this some weeks before the actual grafting, and leaves at least one branch to serve as a “nurse limb”, with leaves to keep the water and nutrients flowing up into the parts of the tree what will receive the grafts.
Using a very sharp grafting knife, he then slips 1–3 pieces of Kishu budwood under the bark – so it makes contact with the Pixie cambium layer on the upper side of the remaining scaffold limbs. Paint with sealer, and cover with paper cones to protect the tender buds.
Then wait.
A few months later, we have 40 takes out of 53 trees grafted. That’s with Sam coming back to regraft two times. Some of the little sprouts are so wee and tiny that they might not make it.
If the topworking is successful, we’ve switched the tree to produce a different variety of citrus. The mature root system can push a lot of energy into those new branches, so we could be seeing more Kishus in a couple more years. It’s not an instant makeover, but puts these trees back in production in 3-4 years.
Our friends at Ventura Spirits have been incorporating our Pixies into their excellent Wilder Gin for some time now.
We’re delighted to be an ingredient in the Wilder.
Ventura Spirits has just released a Pixie Collins – you can see their handiwork here: https://venturaspirits.com/products/pixie-collins
