The Kelso Family

My name is Derrell Kelso, I am the owner of FromTheFarm.com.  I was born and raised in a small farming community in Clarksburg, California on the Sacramento River Delta in Northern California between Sacramento and Stockton (to the south).  The following Kitchen Art derived from old family produce labels my father collected.  No matter if you want this for your personal kitchen or for a restaurant, I guarantee you will absolutely love this unique canvas kitchen art.  These old, old produce labels have history, color, and will add character to your home or restaurant.

The photo’s of these labels you will find here are produce labels collected by my father Derrell Kelso Sr. Sr., as we call him, is a horticulturist and would help these local family farmers in their farming problems, solutions and help them make horticultural decisions.  The farmers and packers of these labels he knew very well.  Some of these labels are from as early as the 20’s and 30’s and are no longer active.  They are all labels of either Asparagus or Bartlett pears family owned farms.  Asparagus was and still is grown in the Delta regions, called “islands”.  These islands are surrounded by sloughs and rivers of the California delta.  Most of the dirt is either a “sandy loam” or “peat dirt”.  These two types of soil are very rich and they both warm very fast activating the early growth of asparagus.  Up until the 1990’s asparagus showing up in stores across America was a sign of spring.  Today, with Peru and Mexico asparagus is a yearlong commodity and with labor being so expensive in the U.S. and so cheap in Peru and Mexico, American farmers have a difficult time breaking even on growing asparagus and competing with imports.  They do not get the good money in the spring with the big excitement of eating asparagus for the first time of the New Year any longer.  I will tell you though, there is nothing better that Northern California Delta Asparagus.

The rivers and sloughs that surround these islands are contained by levees.  These levees were built by Chinese immigrants who settled the town of Locke and lived there during their building of the river delta levee systems.  To read more about Locke go here, www.locketown.com. Bartlett Pears still grow today up next to these levee’s.  The reason for the planting of Bartlett pears next to the levee’s is that the ground within 500 feet to 1500 feet of the levees is elevated.  This gets the trees roots out of the high water table in the winter.  The majority of the Bartlett Pear trees that remain are between 60 and 100 years old and still producing. Bartlett Pears like the Delta Northern California climate because of the warm summer days and cool nights.  At night in the summer it will cool down in the 50’s and the days get into the 90’s and sometimes 100’s.  It cools because of the water ways and the breeze we get from San Francisco sixty miles away.  Bartlett pears require cool evenings and nights in order to ripen the fruit in July.

Great Delta Links:
•    This is the best site to see the River Delta www.mikepieretti.com
•    http://www.californiadelta.org/marina_org_photo_index.htm
•    http://snugharbor.net/historic_steamboat_slough.htm
•    http://www.calasparagus.com/
•    http://www.calpear.com/our-fruit/history.aspx
•    http://www.pearfair.org/html/the_delta.html