Picking

Picking was Originally Posted on September 22, 2012 by lavarock

The past week or two I have been busy here (busier than usual). The California grass (as we call it) had gotten taller than many of the coffee and fruit trees and needed cutting.

I had been asked to help my neighbor move mulch so the mower was taken off the tractor and a counter weight put on. When I was done, I replaced the mower. When the neighbor decided to offer to rent the tractor and do the next step himself, I put the counter weight back on and waited. Finally, I had to mow, so back the mower went.

For the coffee area I must go down each row and come back, so I can cut efficiently. I also can come down a row and return a different row thus eliminating a sharp”K’ type turn to get backinto the same row. I can make a more easily maneuvered “S” turn.

The fruit tree rows are 4 times wider and thus not as hard to maneuver, still, an “S” turn would be easier if I had the trench fully filled in. I have not done that as the cost of delivered material is expensive. I think I will wait and keep taking silt out of the waterway and use that instead, since the trench only contains water lines and not crops.

Yesterday I decided that rather than drive down each row of fruit trees four times, I would try to go across each drip line and cover half the length of the property on each cut. This is equivalet to cutting through each neighbors yard rather than going back and forth on each street. I was able to get the whole fruit area cut in just a few hours, rather than it taking all day. It also saved me a ton of hours weed-wacking between each tree in a row. The only drawbacks are that I was not able to cut very close to the ground because I might cut into a drip water line I was driving over. Also, constant driving over the drip lines may tend t osquash them and make the less efficient. However, now that ythe weeds are pretty well cut down, I may be able to kill them easier so they won’t continue to grow. Every time I have gotten the weeds cut, it has rained very hard and kept me from getting weed killer put down and thus, the weeds grow back.

At this point, the fruit area looks pretty good and I just have to do a small bit of cutting around each tree. The coffee area is another matter. I may have found a solution for that but won’t know for a few days.

In the past I have put up an ad for weeding help and sometimes gotten people who were not the best or had other issues. I got word of a WOOFER who might be able to help. A WOOFER is a person who has signed up and been partially vetted. They travel to places like Hawaii and trade work on a farm for a place to stay and food. This one is already staying elsewhere and is already trading work for these items, but may want to work a few more hours doing the same thing AND getting paid. I can offer reasonable pay and he can work whatever hours he wants, clearing around the coffee trees. Oftentimes the WOOFER is required to work certain hours or certain days. Thus this may be a bit easier if he wants to earn some money, yet remain independent on what schedule he want to follow.

I also have been picking coffee cherry, both ripe and over ripe. The over ripe cherry is a problem and we cannot leave it on the trees. So now as I process the cherry, I have to remove the over ripe stuff where in future pickings it won’t be such a problem.

When I pick the cherry, it has to be processed right away, otherwise it starts to go bad. The processing involves washing it and removing bad cherry, then pulping the outer covering off. I use a pulper that is much like a cheese grater with little nubs on it. It nicks the cherry and the outer covering is removed. Last year I turned the crank by hand, but this year, with more cherry to process, I bought and installed a small motor. I have that mounted atop a large plastic tub and have a pretty good procedure devised to process the cherry. Then I soak the resultant parchment and remove the mucilage. Then I dry the beans (usually in the sun) but also keeping a watch on the weather so I can cover them in case of rain.

Once dry they can be stored, or sent to be milled. The milled parchment beans are what we call “green” which are then roasted, bagged and sold.

So again, in a few weeks I’ll have some coffee to sell. That is, unless I drink it all myself. Yes, I have seen the messages from some of you wanting to get some of the coffee, and I have not forgotten. It is getting closer every day!