Where We Grow, January 2011

It’s an exciting and busy year for us, as we launch into farming some new ground and growing even more variety of vegetables and fruits. We thought it would be nice to give you an overview of the land we grow on both at our home and our other fields.

Home Farm

High Ground Organics is perched above Harkins Slough (a freshwater wetland bordering us on two sides), just outside of Watsonville west of Highway 1. We bought this land in 2000, after farming on leased land in the area for a few years. The Open Space Alliance (a local land trust) sold us the property after applying two easements that protect it in perpetuity. OSA recognized that preserving this land from development was vital to protect the sensitive habitat of Harkins Slough. The hillsides that lead down to the slough (about half of the 40 acres) are in a Conservation Easement and cannot be farmed or developed at all. The other half of the property is protected under a unique Agricultural Easement, that not only keeps it in farmland (prohibits development), but requires that it be managed organically forever.

Over the past few years we have planted out several acres of our land into apples, pears, and blueberries. We wanted to plant some different types of fruit than are normally found in the stores and we found some really wonderful heirloom varieties through a one acre trial orchard at the Redman House (see below). We’re also excited about having blueberries this year! It took us several years after we moved here to finally clear most of the debris that was on this farm when we moved in, which included removing huge concrete slabs left over from the farm’s old dairying days. The soil in this newly uncovered ground is sandier than the other places on the farm, and we decided it would be perfect for growing blueberries, which like more acidic soils. We fallowed the ground for an entire year and mulched with redwood bark to lower the pH before we planted it into blueberries in 2009. It’s felt like a long wait, but the blueberries look great and should begin to bear fruit this summer.

Every piece of farmland has its own character, related to its soil type, topography, and local climate. The one shortcoming of our home farm is that it is very hard to get an early start when planting our spring crops. Because most of the soils are heavy clays and there is a naturally occurring clay pan underlying most of the farm, it takes a long time for things to dry out enough for us to get in with the tractor. As we put more of our home farmland into orchards and other perennials, we also found we needed more ground for the row crops and for rotating our strawberry plantings each year. (In order to grow strawberries organically, it’s necessary to rotate the ground out of strawberries for several years before replanting them in the same field. This is because of soil-borne fungal diseases that build up in the soil under strawberry crops. These diseases are the reason that conventional growers claim they need to apply chemical fumigants like methyl bromide or methyl iodide before they plant each year.) In addition, we were unsure of the future of the Redman House farmland that we’ve been leasing. So we started looking around for additional land.

Lewis Road

We feel that owning the land we farm allows us to manage it with a truly long term view, so when we discovered a 23 acre parcel of “vacant land” for sale in North Monterey County we had to check it out. We completely fell in love with this property, which had not been farmed in 25 years. The sandy, well-drained soil type and warmer location was the perfect complement to our home farm with its heavy clay and cool coastal summer fog. In March of 2010 after an arduous loan process we purchased “0 Lewis Road” and have spent the past year preparing it for farming. We installed a new well pump, located the old underground mainline irrigation system (no small feat), cleaned up the fields and removed several truckloads of junk, built a deer fence, put in settlement basins to catch any runoff that should occur on the slopes, and terraced the steepest part of the farm. By early September we had the entire property planted out with a cover crop of bell beans, peas, oats and vetch, which will improve the soil fertility, outcompete the weeds, and keep the sandy slopes from eroding in the fall and winter rains. That cover crop is now lush and tall–we’ll be able to work it in within the month so we can plant the first spring crops for the CSA nice and early.

Redman Hirahara House Farmland

For the past six years we have leased ten acres of good Watsonville farmland around the historic dilapidated Redman Hirahara House (that abandoned Victorian style house you see off to the right as you head south of Watsonville on Highway 1). It has proven to be excellent ground to grow strawberries, as well as carrots, cole crops, lettuces, winter squashes, leeks, green onions, celery, beets, turnips, radishes, and flowers. Farming the property also allows us to sell our vegetables and fruits at the little farmstand located on the edge of the farm. We have really enjoyed being able to offer our vegetables to local Watsonville residents and Highway 1 commuters, who appreciate seeing the vegetables they are buying growing in the field. We’re delighted also that the native plant hedgerow that was planted there the first year we leased it (by cooperation with Sam Earnshaw at the Community Alliance with Family Farmers) is flourishing and provides a nice green barrier along the exit from the Highway. The Redman property has an interesting history. A foundation of historical landmark enthusiasts purchased the property in order to save and restore the house at the height of the boom in property values. By 2009, however, they were unable to keep up with the payments and the property was foreclosed. They still have hopes that they will be able to work out some way to restore the old house. While our future use of this land is uncertain (we are now on a year to year lease), we will continue to farm it and operate the farmstand in 2011.