Arts & Culture

CENTRAL COAST—The California cut flower industry has changed drastically in the last 30 years. Once controlling more than half of cut flower sales in the U.S., it has gradually been overtaken by competition from overseas growers. The Pajaro Valley, once a mecca of rose growing,...

Celebrate the “Summer of Love” at the 81st Annual Monterey County Fair, Aug. 31 to Sept. 4, in Monterey, where more than 75,000 fairgoers are expected to come together for fun activities and events at the fairgrounds nestled on 22 oak-studded acres in the city.

WATSONVILLE—For years the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau (SCCFB) and the Agri-Culture organization have hosted the National Agriculture Day Spring Luncheon. However, due to the current COVID- 19 pandemic, the March 18 event was postponed, and its future remains uncertain. Despite this, the two groups...

WATSONVILLE—Pajaro Valley’s agriculture businesses and the employees that keep them running are starting to feel the heat, literally. Rising temperatures and more frequent heat waves and wildfires are growing concerns for farmers in the typically cool, coastal stretch of land that overlaps Santa Cruz and...

Like many agricultural businesses in the Pajaro Valley, Sambrailo Packaging, the Watsonville-based packaging company that has been involved in the agricultural industry for the past 94 years, got its start in apples.

These women tidy up the grounds of the Corralitos Women’s Club in preparation for an annual show on May 1, 1957. (Sam Vestal/Pajaronian file)

Editor’s note: This is the first entry of a two-part series on San Francisco.  I was in San Francisco twice recently and though I’ve been there numerous times I still ran into plenty of new places to make it worth the short trek north. In December...

On the second day of an overnight journey to Petaluma at the top of the north San Francisco Bay Area, the Best Western Motel helped start our day with a waffle breakfast, good coffee and OJ.  Wandering through the older part of downtown Petaluma the...