Dragon Spring Farm
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Dragon Spring Farm Dedicated to Superior Produce through Sustainable Agriculture. |
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How We Farm
BlueberriesMany of our customers fondly remember picking blueberries as children in Maine, Michigan or Washington State. Much has transpired in the blueberry industry in recent years with a concentration on the development of new varieties based on southern highbush rootstock. Several of these newer types thrive in California, and extensive commercial plantings have been made in the San Joaquin Valley since the beginning of the 21st Century.
When we began to contemplate how to best use about three acres of very fertile soil near Santa Rosa Creek, we considered a number of perennial crops but quickly focused our research on berries and grapes. This valley carved out by Santa Rosa Creek contains a number of microclimates. Being approximately ten miles from the ocean, our farm is favored by a gentle climate. Highs during the summer rarely exceed 90oF, and frosts are rare during the winter because the colder air tends to funnel down the creek and settle about four miles west of our property.
These and other factors made us settle on blueberries as a concentration. Our first planting was established in the winter of 2001/2 on 1/3rd acre near the creek. We experimented with seven varieties and chose Sharpblue, Misty and Jewel for subsequent plantings based on the quality of their fruit and agronomic consideration.
With two subsequent plantings, we now have slightly over and acre (ca. 2000 bushes) planted. We have been picking the first planting for three years and will begin to pick our second this spring. The reception at local farmer’s markets has been exceptional, as the quality of the fruit is extremely high.
But blueberries grow wild in areas like Maine for a reason. They like moist, well-drained soil. They are also poor at recovering iron from neutral or alkaline soils and prefer high organic soils on the acid side.
As such, our soils required a great deal of amending to render them suitable for blueberry cultivation. Our berries are now grown on one-foot high berms that are about fifty percent organic matter. In addition, we adjust our irrigation water with acid to lower the pH, which is highly alkaline by nature. All this is very labor and material intensive.
But unfortunately, our issues with the cultivation of blueberries didn’t. Birds probably like the berries better than humans and the creek area provides a wonderful natural habitat. So during our first year of production we lost more than fifty percent of our crop to a bird population that swelled in terms of numbers and species based on a readily available diet of luscious blueberries.
As a consequence in 2004 our farm took on a whole new appearance because we now have bird netting draped over a nine-foot tall structure covering thousands of berry bushes. The netting proved to be a humane way to keep most of the birds away from the berries, but it is a constant battle to patch the holes the birds make to gain access to the fruit and damage caused by wind.
In the end however, all the investment and work have proved worthwhile and blueberries are the star performer of the Dragon Spring Farm portfolio of products.
We like the berries fresh in a smoothie or just with yogurt. There are also a wide variety of way you can cook with berries to take advantage of their clear health benefits and flavor. A few of Carol’s recipes can be found on this page.
Avocados
Avocados are a subtropical crop, and Santa Rosa Creek marks the northern boundary for avocado cultivation. As such the avocados ripen slowly and evenly, and are notable for very high oil content. All this means that our avocados are very high in quality with a rich, nutty flavor.
We can begin to pick Haas fruit in June, but typically prefer to wait until August for premium quality fruit. The season can be long and we will often still be picking Haas in January.
We have about four acres of Haas fruit, intermixed with twenty percent pollinator trees. Our pollinators are Zutano, Sir Prize, and Ettinger. All these produce what is referred to as ‘green-skinned’ fruit that we begin to pick in February. As a consequence, we can offer avocados during most times of the year.
Depending on the time of year, avocados take ten to fourteen days from picking to be ready to eat. Therefore, we can ship fruit that will arrive ready to eat a day or two following arrival.
Heirloom Tomatoes
We have had a love affair with tomatoes from the very beginning. Few culinary experiences can compare to a lunch of fresh picked, perfectly ripe tomatoes with a light balsamic vinaigrette or just a little salt. Unfortunately, you must either grow your own tomatoes or visit our stand at the farmer’s market where we often have picked the tomatoes the morning of the market.
Over the years we have settled on a stock portfolio of wonderful tomatoes that taste great and do well under our growing conditions. These include four Brandywines (pink, yellow and two reds – named after the Brandywine river area of Pennsylvania/Delaware), Paul Robeson and Black Prince (originally from Russia), Old German and Aunt Ruby’s Green (from Germany) and others. Each year we try small plantings of new varieties and sometimes one will stick – this year it was Ananas Noir.
Because these old fashioned varieties of tomatoes are thin skinned and extremely fragile, you will not find them in you supermarket. The industrialized food industry cannot deal with a fresh-picked, fragile product like real tomatoes. In fact the big supermarket chains have educated several generations of Americans that tomatoes are meant to be hard, cold and flavorless.
But we will prove them different. Visit our stand at one of the farmers markets and see what a real tomato should taste like. One of our favorite recipes for a tomato platter featuring ripe tomatoes of various colors can be found below
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All Rights Reserved. Last Updated: Monday 2 July 2007.
