Ed Shoemaker never did anything small.
“Everything he did was a lot of work, but he was successful in everything he did,” said his daughter, Christy Roscoe.
Ed Shoemaker, founder of Shoemaker’s Farm, now Ramona Fresh Fruits. (Courtesy Christy Roscoe)
One of her father’s projects was creating Shoemaker’s Farm, an orchard on Traylor Road in Ramona filled with common and exotic fruit trees.
After her father’s passing in January, Christy and her husband, Tim Roscoe, are hoping to be just as successful with the farm and farm stand they’ve renamed Ramona Fresh Fruits.
Now the official owners, the Roscoes are busy preparing for the upcoming you-pick persimmon season, which opens Oct. 29. On a recent overcast morning, Christy was wearing headphones and trimming fruit trees.
Fuyu persimmons are just one of several persimmon varieties available from Ramona Fresh Fruits. Persimmons are available as you-pick in season, pre-picked and dried. (Courtesy Christy Roscoe)
Although the round, tomato-shaped “Fuyu” is the primary persimmon grown on the farm, there are several other varieties, she said.
“The Fuyu can be eaten while it is crunchy, like an apple. Some of the other kinds are astringent when they are crunchy but turn sweet when they soften,” she said.
Roscoe described several more of the farm’s persimmon varieties: “Chocolate” can be eaten when crunchy, but the name is more about the color inside than the taste — it has sweet, brown flesh. “Tamopan” look like big acorns. They are tomato-shaped with a distinctive cap and are soft and nearly jelly-like when ripe; the fruit is excellent eaten fresh or for cooking, baking or preserves.
“Spice Cake” persimmons are dark on the inside. (Courtesy Christy Roscoe)
“Hachiya” definitely have to be soft, and many people enjoy them dried whole. When ripe, the pulp is ideal for baking. “Spice Cake,” one of the earliest varieties to ripen, can be eaten before they soften if they are pollinated; if not pollinated, they are astringent.
“You can wait until Spice Cakes get ripe and soften, or put it in the freezer, where it will soften and get sweet. Either way, I suggest you cut it open and not bite it open,” Roscoe cautioned.
Ramona Fresh Fruits offers pre-picked persimmons at $25 for a 2-gallon bucket, $50 for 5-gallon.
“For $40 plus a $10 deposit, we give you a 5-gallon bucket to fill with persimmons. The deposit is returned after the fruit is bagged,” Roscoe said.
A line of vehicles fills the road during the start of the you-pick persimmon season at Ramona Fresh Fruits. (Courtesy Christy Roscoe)
A family shows off their buckets filled with freshly picked persimmons. (Courtesy Christy Roscoe)
Pre-picked buckets of fruit showcase some of the many options available at Ramona Fresh Fruits. (Courtesy Christy Roscoe)
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A line of vehicles fills the road during the start of the you-pick persimmon season at Ramona Fresh Fruits. (Courtesy Christy Roscoe)
Feijoas, or pineapple guavas, are also available.
“Some are round, some are oblong some are as small as kumquats and some are as big as avocados. The whole thing can be eaten; the inside looks kind of like a pear and you can use a spoon to scrape the insides out,” she said. “You can be in heaven with a bucket of them because they smell so good.”
Pineapple guavas, cut open to show off the delicate pulp inside. (Courtesy Christy Roscoe)
Plums, including purple, red, green and yellow are for sale, as are nectarines, pluots — a cross between an apricot and a plum — figs, apples, oranges, blood oranges, tangerines, mandarins, kumquats and pomegranates.
The farm is also known for other fruits and vegetables, including “Galia” and “Crenshaw” melons, tomatoes, grapes, several types of squash and blackberries.
Nearly all of the fruits and vegetables are $5 a bag. All are grown on the farm without chemicals and picked when ripe. Jams and jellies are $8 a jar.
Roscoe said when her father purchased the farm site, it was 8 1/2 acres filled with neglected kiwis and a few scattered fruit trees.
“My dad built a house and moved here in 2000 after downsizing from a 10-acre exotic bird farm in Poway,” she said. “But my dad didn’t know how to downsize.”
He still wanted a business, and after trying flowers first, after a couple of years he focused on fruit trees. Never one to do anything small, he planted both common and exotic varieties of many different types.
A persimmon tree heavily laden with fruit. (Courtesy Christy Roscoe)
The now-towering persimmon trees, which were “just sticks in the ground, were nursed back to health and he kept planting more,” she said.
He eventually purchased the lot next door, with the same amount of acreage, and Roscoe’s sister built a home and lived it for a few years. After she sold the property and moved to Nebraska, Roscoe said her father continued to farm on both lots.
Tim and Christy Roscoe, owners of Ramona Fresh Fruits, an orchard that includes a farm stand and you-pick fruits in season. (Courtesy Christy Roscoe)
She and her husband had also moved out of state, but returned in February 2015 at her dad’s request.
“He wanted us to move back so he could teach us about the farm so we could take it over,” she said. “It was really a good thing, because both my mom and dad started declining pretty quickly after that.”
Although the couple had purchased their own home, they soon moved in with her parents to help with their care and running the farm.
Tim Roscoe works from home as an electrical engineer. Christy Roscoe home-schooled their two now-adult sons and then their two now-young adult daughters, adopted from Liberia. She also worked driving school buses.
As Roscoe mentions that lemons and limes will be ready in a couple of years and that she wants to grow more “Crenshaw” melons, it’s easy to see her passion for exotic fruit doesn’t fall far from her father’s tree.
Ramona Fresh Fruit is at 18131 Traylor Road; call 619-630-4693. The farm stand is open daily from daylight to dark, but you-pick hours change weekly. Roscoe suggests checking the website, ramonafreshfruits.com, or social media pages for more information.