Traveling south east of here towards Indio are date plantations. Don and I stopped at Oasis Date Plantation where we were able to sample a variety of different dates. We tasted a few, Medjool are definitely the biggest! We ate a spinach salad with dates, walnuts, feta, and a champagne dressing. Scrumptious!!
A lot of fruit and vegetable farms are in this area too. Don and I drove around the farm area and saw figs, peppers, cauliflower, lettuce, oranges, grapefruit, lemons as well as other unknown products growing. We even saw workers harvesting strawberries.
All the farming depends on irrigation. The soil looks very light and sandy. Hard to believe anything can grow in it!!
Then we drove down to the Salton Sea. This body of water arrived in this valley by accident in the early 1900s. The Colorado River was being diverted for irrigation purposes and broke through its levees. It ran for 2 years before they were able to repair the breeches. The water that flowed into this area was enough to cover more than 45 miles long and 25 miles wide. A huge area! With nowhere to go this sea is 'dead' with only a small amount of run off rain water adding to it and vast amounts of water evaporating. Apparently this sea increases the salinity by 1% per year.
A lot of fruit and vegetable farms are in this area too. Don and I drove around the farm area and saw figs, peppers, cauliflower, lettuce, oranges, grapefruit, lemons as well as other unknown products growing. We even saw workers harvesting strawberries.
All the farming depends on irrigation. The soil looks very light and sandy. Hard to believe anything can grow in it!!
Then we drove down to the Salton Sea. This body of water arrived in this valley by accident in the early 1900s. The Colorado River was being diverted for irrigation purposes and broke through its levees. It ran for 2 years before they were able to repair the breeches. The water that flowed into this area was enough to cover more than 45 miles long and 25 miles wide. A huge area! With nowhere to go this sea is 'dead' with only a small amount of run off rain water adding to it and vast amounts of water evaporating. Apparently this sea increases the salinity by 1% per year.
Dates hanging on a date palm.
Dates to sample. All are sweet, some smaller/bigger, fleshier/skinnier, darker/lighter.
Salad with dates, chicken, walnuts, oranges, cranberries, avocado, lettuce and champagne dressing.
Yummy!!
Field of cauliflower.
Can you see the white of the cauliflower way down inside??
Cool... Could you swim in it?.
ReplyDeleteDonna