Community

Focus on Agriculture will soon be two years old.

WATSONVILLE—About two dozen farmworkers settled in on picnic tables at a Lakeside Organic Gardens field Wednesday for a fresh, healthy lunch featuring the very crops they harvest.  The meal was prepared by Charlie Hong Kong, a Santa Cruz Asian fusion restaurant that was Lakeside’s first...

Ranked 11th by last year’s U.S. food and wine festival calendar critics, the 2017 Paso Robles Wine Festival is scheduled for May 18-21 and will feature four days of dinners, tastings and educational seminars fit for both experienced and inexperienced pala

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—Santa Cruz County Agricultural Commissioner Juan Hidalgo released the 2021 Santa Cruz County Crop Report on Oct. 5, which shows a 3.4 percent increase in overall crop production values over the past year. Strawberries remain the top crop in Santa Cruz County, with...

After more than four years of devastating drought, 2017 saw California receive the wettest winter in more than 100 years.

On May 18, the Salinas Valley Fair returns to King City for four days of family-friendly events, exhibits and activities.

When Dick Peixoto decided in 1996 to convert his 55-acre farm in Watsonville to an organic production, he wasn’t sure if he’d made the right decision.  Peixoto had been farming conventionally for years, and back then, organic produce was a specialty—something only smaller farms tended...

Patrick and Teresa Royan were living in Los Gatos when they first discovered Pleasant Valley, a rural area in Aptos permeated with rolling hills, orchards, vineyards and pastures. The couple had been looking for a place to settle relatively close to the beach yet...

The Rancho Cielo Youth Campus was the site of a groundbreaking ceremony for the Ted Taylor Agricultural Center on April 8, with speakers including Bruce Taylor and John Phillips, founder of Rancho Cielo.

WATSONVILLE—On March 30, the Watsonville Municipal Airport (KWVI) announced it had renewed a two-year lease with Watsonville-based Urban Organics, aiming to bring fresh produce to the community as the sole organic farm within city limits. At the southernmost tip of airport property, just over the...