Ellwood Canyon Farms

Jack’s Story: I grew up in Brawley, California, located in the Imperial Valley, in a fourth generation farming family. As a boy farming wasn’t the plan, all I wanted was to… Read Ellwood Canyon Farms' full profile here.

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CSA begins

May 8th, 2010
Ellwood Canyon Farms | Blog

I had a good first day with the CSA. Ten members showed up at the farm and picked up shares last monday and I have 14 people signed up for next week. I was happy with the produce and I hope the members are happily eating it. Contents included 1 bunch carrots, 1 bunch chiogga beat, 1 bunch turnip, 10oz sugar snap peas, 1 bag green lettuce, 1 bag red lettuce, 1 bunch kale, 1 bunch chard, 1 red onion, 1 purple kohlrabi, 1 green garlic, 1 pound broccoli/caulilower, 1 bunch culinary sage.

The Farmers market I’ve been attending is slowly getting better…...

[nggallery id=183]

The field is looking good, with the last week of sun and warmer weather stuff is really starting to grow. I have been busy taking care of everything I have growing, keeping pests at bay, as well as planting new crops.

The next two weeks I will be planting more warm weather crops….. tomatoes, squash, beans, eggplant, peppers, cucumbers, melons….. as well as more lettuce, carrots, beets, radish, turnips, onions, leeks, chard, kale, and mustard greens. I direct seed the squash, beans, cucumbers, carrots, beets, radish and turnips and the rest are from transplants that I started last month. I am fortunate to have Oscar Carmona and Jeff Kramer of Healing Grounds Nursery (completely organic and a very unique wholesale nursery, check them out at healinggroundsnusery.com) literally right next to my field. Oscar is a great guy and has been big help to my cause. He is currently allowing me to use space in one of his greenhouses to do my starts.

As far as field pests go the weeds are definitely number one, gophers in a close second, and beetles really picking up the pace. My remedies include lots of hoeing (I’ve been borrowing a Glaser wheel hoe which is amazing), consistent gopher traps (cinch traps), and the a vacuum that I’ve been sucking up cucumber beetle with (craftsman shop vac). Nothing works perfect but my remedies are slowly improving and with a bit of luck I feel confident I can keep things under control so that plants are healthy and still producing come harvest time.

field shots [nggallery id=184]

Tags: CSA, farmer's market, gophers, pests, glaser wheel hoe

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Wet weather and earthday

April 26th, 2010
Ellwood Canyon Farms | Blog

For some reason winter weather just won’t go away here on the central coast. It rained all last week and rain is in the forecast again this week, not making it easy for prepping soil and planting warm weather crops. Luckily for me the land I am farming is sandy loam and drains fast enough so even with the rains I have been able do some tractor work and get most everything I planned on in the ground.

The Earthday festival I participated in last week went great. It was a huge event and my booth was in a section called “harvest to home” that was themed all around local food. I met a lot of great people in the area that are doing similar things as myself, good contacts and networking stuff. I think this local food movement is all about everybody working together as opposed to competing and that was definitely the vibe at earthday. I handed out over a hundred CSA brochures, met many potential members, and even had a couple people sign up on the spot.

Other than that all is good here at Ellwood. Here are some photos, enjoy.

rainy day photo:

Earthday Booth:[nggallery id=172]

Tags: CSA, rain, earthday

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Worms and CSA

April 12th, 2010
Ellwood Canyon Farms | Blog

The last couple of weeks I have been spending lots of time marketing for my initial CSA season which starts the first week in May and runs through October (6 months, 26 weeks). I made a brochure with pictures and all the information that I have been handing out to anyone that is interested as well as just talking about it as much as possible and explaining the idea to everybody I know. I am looking for about 20 members and so far I only have 5 signed up so I’m really pushing to get more… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: CSA, compost tea, worm bin, vermiculture

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Ellwood Update

March 25th, 2010
Ellwood Canyon Farms | Blog

Everything has been going good here at Ellwood Canyon. Yesterday was big day, after three months of paper work, phone calls, ag-inspector visits and meetings I finally got into my first farmers market. The one they are currently allowing me to attend is every Wednesday afternoon at Harding elementary school on the Westside of Santa Barbara. It is a new market so the crowd is very slow but I am hoping that in time it will gain in popularity. I am also hoping that I will soon be allowed to… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: beans, CSA, farmer's market, peppers, squash, tomatoes, egglplants

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Cover Crops and Compost

March 8th, 2010
Ellwood Canyon Farms | Blog

Hello all, Everything is going good here at Ellwood Canyon. With a break in the rainy weather I am making a big push to prepare my next section for planting. Here is a step by step of the process: 1)Planted peaceful valley’s soil builder cover crop mix in December. 2)Mowed and turned under the cover crop just as it began to flower the 3rd week in February (the flowering stage is when legumes are at their highest nitrogen fixation point). 3)Let the ground sit for a couple weeks to… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: cover crops, compost, soil builder mix

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The Field

February 22nd, 2010
Ellwood Canyon Farms | Blog

Here is a shot of the field at Ellwood Canyon. Photo: Read the rest of this article »

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Brief Background Of Ellwood Canyon Farms

February 21st, 2010
Ellwood Canyon Farms | Blog

Ellwood Canyon Farms is located on two acres in the western outskirts of Goleta, Ca. It is a small piece of a larger 20 acre agricultural property. I am only one of the 6 tenants on the property, the other five being another farmer, two nurseries, a mechanic, and a tree trimming company. The property has a long history of agriculture dating back to the 1870s when horticulturist Ellwood Cooper first cultivated the fertile soil. I began renting the property last November. The… Read the rest of this article »

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Initail Blog

February 12th, 2010
Ellwood Canyon Farms | Blog

Everything is going good here at Elwood Canyon Farms. I had a busy week with lots of planting, weeding, greenhouse cleaning, seeding and production planing for the coming season . Well I just wanted to say hello and test out how this blogging thing works. I’m hoping this weekend to find some time to write a bit more on the background and plans for Ellwood Canyon as well as post some more pictures. Thanks for reading and I’ll keep you posted. Jack A couple photos of the farm: Read the rest of this article »

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Jack Motter

Ellwood Canyon Farms
Goleta, CA

Farm Acreage: 2

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