HOME PAGE	This month in the fields at Brown Date Garden	Mail-order sales and price list	Packing house hours & directions	Comparison chart of dates

"Old Ted" and "Big Donna" with granddaughter Ali and great-granddaughter Kaylynn, outside the packing house in 2002. Kaylynn used to work in the packing house with her grandmother "Little Donna." Meanwhile, "Old Ted" and "Big Donna" are now enjoying their heavenly home.

The Brown Date Garden has grown Medjool, Deglet Noor, and Barhee/Barhi dates since 1930, for wholesale, retail, and mail-order customers. We grow the finest dates in the United States, because our dates and citrus fruit are raised with hot summer days, bountiful water, hard work, and loving care by our family. We are located in the beautiful Coachella Valley in Southern California, nestled between snow-capped mountains overlooking the Salton Sea, about an hour east of Palm Springs. We give full attention and care to everyone, from a mail order for a one-pound box of dates to a wholesale order for tons of fruit.

IMPORTANT NEWS ABOUT OUR 2022-2023 DATES!

What we grow at Brown Date Garden

We carry many varieties of dates, although we specialize in Jumbo Medjool, Deglet Noor, and Barhee/Barhi dates (including the Yellow Barhee date, referred to as the Khalal). We also grow a wide variety of citrus fruit, and . . . peacocks.

• Jumbo Medjool dates — Medjools are sweet, moist, meaty, and firm-textured.

• Deglet Noor dates — These are amber colored, with a great delicate flavor although not as sweet or moist as the Medjool.

• Barhee dates — These dates are large and round. When picked in their yellow state, they are referred to as Khalal; they taste semi-sweet and are as crisp as apples.

• Empress dates — The Empress date is elongated, soft, and not too sweet.

• Citrus fruit — We grow temple oranges, grapefruit (Ruby, White, and Rio Red), lemons, tangelos, and Fairchild tangerines.

• Peacocks and peahens — We have some Asian peafowl living on Brown Date Garden. They are our "mascots," dating from when our family first purchased the ranch. The birds freely roam the farm property during the day. At night, they roost in the tops of the date palms, far from predators (even if it's windy or raining); despite their long feathers, they can and do fly. They eat worms, insects, and seeds (although they can also eat turkey feed, bread, cheese, and fruit). The males lose their colorful plumage in the summer; the best time to see their brilliant feather displays is in January, February, or March. Adult peacocks measure six to eight feet in length, including the train, and can weigh up to 12 pounds; the peahen is smaller. And no, we do not sell or eat the peacocks.

	Yellow Barhees are packaged and shipped immediately after being picked.

What's great about Brown Date Garden

We harvest, grade, and package what we grow ourselves. That means savings to you because we have eliminated the middle-man. Also, we are a "no-frills" operation with low overhead, resulting in bargain prices for you.

We ship most orders within 24 hours of receiving your order so that you are assured of getting fresh food; in supermarkets, you sometimes get dates that are two or three years old. We ship retail orders to U.S. street addresses. Our retail date packages contain either single or multiple varieties of dates, ranging from one-pound, two-pound, three-pound, five-pound, and 15-pound boxes.

Our date palms are grown directly from palm offshoots, not seedlings. The difference is this: offshoots are identical to the "parent" palm, including the fruit quality; seedlings are grown from dates that fall to the ground (we treat them like weeds).

"Little Ted" started training his granddaughter Kaylynn early to be a fifth-generation date farmer and forklift operator.

History of Brown Date Garden

The Brown Date Garden was purchased by Tom and Florence Brown in 1930, when the California date industry was still in its early stages. During the week, Tom and Florence were school teachers in Glendale, California; on the weekends, they grew dates in the desert. They moved to the farm full-time in 1941 because of the gasoline shortage. (Their little house is still standing, near to the date garden's packing house.)

After their deaths, Tom's nephew Ted Fish and his wife Donna took over the ranch. In time, their son "Little Ted" and his wife "Little Donna" joined them, working side-by-side with "Old Ted" and "Big Donna." We are proud of the fact that we have been family-owned and -operated since 1930.

Date facts and tidbits

Nutritional value of dates — A 40-gram serving (about 5-6 small dates or 3-4 large dates) has 120 calories; 240 milligrams of potassium (7% USRDA); 31 grams of carbohydrate (10% USRDA), including 3 grams of dietary fiber (14% USRDA) and 29 grams of natural sugar; and 1 gram of protein. This serving of dates also has 2% of the USRDA for calcium, thiamin, niacin, folate, iron, riboflavin, Vitamin B6, and phosphorus; and 4% of the USRDA for magnesium. Dates have no fat, no cholesterol, and no sodium.

Dates are a fresh fruit, not a dried fruit. You may store dates at room temperature for up to two months, or in the refrigerator for up to one year, or in the freezer for several years.

Date recipes are available at http://www.datesaregreat.com/date-recipe-center/.

Dates are mentioned in the Bible as a great gift. "(King) David blessed the people . . . Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates, and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd." (2Samuel 6:18-19) Dates are also mentioned in Akkadian and Sumerian cuneiform sources, as early as 2500 B.C.

Dates came from the Middle East and North Africa; they are considered to be "the bread of the desert." In those areas, the date palm itself is used for wood and fabric for houses, furniture, and fences; the date palm's leaves are used to make ropes, cord, and baskets. NOTE: Date palms are called palms, not trees.

There are 90 million date palms in the world, according to the World Food and Agricultural Organization. Each date palm can grow for more than 100 years.

Brown Date Garden's land-mail address = 69245 Polk Street, Thermal, CA 92274
Office phone = (760) 360-6307.
E-mail address = here
Website address = http://www.browndategarden.com. This website was last updated January 2023.
Website design by Jamesette.com
Photos at top of page [left to right] = Empress dates, Yellow Barhee bunch weighing 124 pounds (more than twice the "average" size bunch), Medjool dates, some of our prize-winning dates at the annual Indio Date Festival, Deglet Noor dates, and our prize-winning citrus fruit.
All photos on this website were taken by Brown Date Garden staff; © 2012-2023 Brown Date Garden.