Yuma Medjool Date Festival 2013

Sweet and tender fruit
I celebrate with a shake
in the old downtown.

~carliewired

We attended the 2nd Annual Date Festival today in the City of Yuma. I LOVE dates!

The cultivation of dates in the USA started about a century ago in the Coachella Valley of California. Initially, dates were used in baking and processing. The varieties grown there were ideal for those uses.

In 1900 date offshoots began to be imported from the Middle East to Arizona. Through the 1920s and 30s a small date industry developed in the Phoenix area. It peaked in the 1940s with about 450 acres in palms. It wasn't hugely successful for a number of reasons so most of the trees were pulled out with little remaining today. No one had yet thought of the southwest of Arizona as a possibility for date farming.

Growers started planting date palms in Bard, California, just across the Colorado River from Yuma, Arizona in 1933. The first Medjool dates were planted there in 1944. Today, Bard produces the best Medjool dates and is the USA's leading source of Medjools. (15 million pounds from 1500 acres)

A small Medjool orchard was established in the Yuma area in the 1980s. When a grower from Bard, California was looking to expand his production in the 1990s, he looked to Yuma. This area now boasts the largest planting of Medjool date palms in the world. In about 7 years, production in the Yuma area will surpass that of the Coachella Valley in California.

Medjools are my favourite. They are sweet, tender, plump and very flavourable. (I like to pop out the pit, put in a gob of peanut butter and sometimes add a walnut.) They are great in a shake too.

The celebration of the Medjool began in Yuma last year. It is interesting to be on Main Street for this event. Yuma has been clever to provide a lot of free parking in the downtown area. There are fountains and lots of public art to enjoy. The street fills up with vendors, music-makers and, even dancers.

We had a chance to squirrel around in an antique store, found a date shake to share and lovely watercolour painting to bring home. Just wandering Main Street with my camera was fun. The weather has cooled today so the mid 70s are just perfect for me.