I'm looking at almonds strewn all over the ground and look up to see none in the trees. I wonder why they are there but know that I'm sure to get the answer shortly. I've pulled off the highway for a minute to get water from the trunk of my car and the sight has me curious. I continue just a few more miles to Ripon and pull into the shelling facility of Boersma Brothers, Inc. 

Almonds almost ready for harvest

Brent Boersma walks up to greet me. We've only really known each other via Twitter and through Know a California Farmer. Brent is a third generation almond farmer and has invited me down to see the harvest of this year's almond crop. As we climb into his pickup I am impressed that it's tricked out with a mounted iPad. Brent explained that now that cell service has improved in his area, it has really helped him to keep connected with the office and the goings-on in the fields.

The Boersma Brothers have almond trees on 17 ranches/fields in the Ripon/Modesto area. Most are owned by them, but a few are leased. Brent explains that there are 30 varieties of almonds, but they deal in the 10 major ones with such names as Carmel, Butte, Aldrich, and the most common, Nonpareil. The Nonpareil are the ones that most people are used to eating straight out of a can/jar of nuts as they are the most consistent in size, shape, taste. 

Brent Boersma

Each field will have a minimum of two varieties but more often three or four for the purposes of cross pollination. Most of the fields will have half Nonpareil and the rest will be other varieties. You might have a row of Nonpareil, then Butte, Nonpareil, Carmel, Nonpareil, repeat. Having a mixture of trees in each field means a lot of work as each variety will mature at different rates and each must be harvested separately. They might come through and do all the Nonpareils over a course of a few weeks, then come back another few weeks to do the Carmels and repeat again for the Buttes as they must keep the varieties separate. Only a few varieties are allowed to be mixed together. So a field can have as many as four different harvesting passes, which in itself takes a lot of time. More on that shortly.

In another instance of "it's in my own backyard all these years but I've never gone...", I ventured to the Blue Diamond Gift Store yesterday. I'm going to a food blogger conference this weekend and we are supposed to bring a gift that either represents our blog or our area. I had been stuck on what to take until someone said "almonds". This made perfect sense to me and so I headed to Blue Diamond.


Located at 1700 C Street, the building is considered an historic landmark. The site is still in operation today. In fact, it turns out that 2010 is their 100 year anniversary. Blue Diamond has 80% of the world market in almonds and sells to 95 countries.


I was surprised by the size of the store. It was very large and open with colorful and attractive displays of all their products. I had no idea they made so many items. But with the push to healthy foods you will find everything from the nuts to almond milk, butter and paste. There were also the logo items like t-shirts.

For those of us who like to bake, they sell 4 and 7 lb. cans of almond paste as well as 4 lb. cans of slivered and sliced almonds. Most of the gift packages revolve on the different flavored almonds. The gift I ended up with had almonds, chocolate almond milk, and almond popcorn.

If you are in need of a gift representing Sacramento, then consider checking out the Blue Diamond store yourself.

Search Amazon.com for blue diamond almonds