Dirty Girl Produce Farm Tour
On September 29, 2009, CUESA toured Dirty Girl Produce, an organic farm near Santa Cruz.
This location is in its 2nd year of leasing; this is the 1st year it has been completely planted out.
Farmer Joe Schirmer said that before he started farming this land, the soil was severely depleted, so he used a perennial rye as a cover crop to outcompete the weeds and supplement the soil.
Dirty Girl Farm is known for its dry-farmed Early Girl Tomatoes. They are planted deep into the soil and not given water all summer. The result is small, very sweet fruit (and a plant that starts to look brown as the summer progresses).
Joe showed us the first and second wave of Early Girl tomatoes – planted in April and June, respectively. The April plants (shown in the previous photo) are struggling visibly since they haven’t been watered since then, but the June plants are much taller and greener. The April plants are the ones that have been supplying the market with tomatoes all summer long.
The ripper, also known as a subsoiler, is one of the keys to the success of dry-farmed tomatoes. Joe hitches it to the back of his tractor and drags the deep claw down the middle of the row, breaking up the soil so the roots can reach deeper into the earth for moisture and allowing compost to be incorporated into the subsoil.
In addition to the Early Girls, Joe grows basil and several types of beans at this location, crops that do better in the inland heat. Recently a hedgerow, a buffer of native flowering plants, was added to the front of the plot. Joe would like to continue to increase the biodiversity of the farm.
Beans are hand-picked; the Haricot Vert beans are delicate and have to be picked every 4 days.
Dirty Girl uses crop rotation to avoid pests and disease. Early Girl tomatoes are grown in any given plot every other year.
Here Joel is standing on the "belly bar"
This tractor is 50 years old and no longer produced by the manufacturer. It's a great fit for Dirty Girl’s needs as a small to mid-sized farm; tractors these days are made for large-scale farms and are wide enough to span several rows. This Kubota features a "belly bar" -- which allows Joe to attach the implement beneath the tractor instead of behind it -- and an offset seat, so he can see straight down and precision cultivate. He had just finished using the cultivator to weed between rows of young bean plants when we got there.
Everyone seemed distressed at the multitude of fallen tomatoes on the ground, but Joe reassured us that the tomatoes were victims of blossom-end rot, a common disease due to calcium deficiency in the fruit. The plants have been supplemented with calcium to minimize this problem, but the fruit have difficulty pulling calcium from the water-stressed leaves.
When we arrived, we saw what we thought was a spread of decaying vegetables, but upon closer inspection they were actually drying shallots. To properly ready shallots for storage, they have to be fully dried. One moist shallot can rot and ruin the whole box. "They make friends," Joe said.
Unlike garlic, shallot bulbs grow above ground. These dried onions and shallots will last Dirty Girl until next July, when they typically sell out and the next harvest comes in.
At this location, the beds are 40 inches apart – our of consideration for his field workers, who Joe says are all Oaxacans between 5’-5’4”. Any wider and it would be difficult for the farmworkers to reach the crops or step across the rows as they place irrigation equipment.
30-35 different crops are grown at Dirty Girl, with about 25 at any time at the market. Pictured: Tokyo Turnips.
Radicchio
Joe has been farming at this location for 4 years. The previous lessee was an organic berry farmer who he says left the soil somewhat depleted since there was no crop rotation. Unlike the dry-farmed tomatoes, all of the crops at the La Selva farm rely on a moist topsoil. The strawberries are very susceptible to disease due to constantly wet conditions.
Unlike the dry-farmed tomatoes, all of the crops at the La Selva farm rely on a moist topsoil.
Joe demonstrates how irrigation pipes must be moved between rows.
Excited for strawberries!
Albion strawberries are the primary variety that Dirty Girl grows.
The second Dirty Girl location we visited is in the much cooler, ocean-side location of La Selva Beach. On the day we visited, the fog was quickly encroaching, but on a good day, it has a nice view of the ocean and Monterey. Pictured here is asparagus.
Strawberries are a popular crop in Santa Cruz County. They're grown atop a black plastic mulch, which suppresses weeds and keeps delicate strawberries off the moist ground.
Right before we boarded the bus again to return to San Francisco, Joe demonstrated how to properly pick strawberries, and generously let everyone pick their own basket to take home.
Dirty Girl employs 12 field workers and a sales crew, which puts in about 30-40 hrs/week. 9 people work at the Ferry Plaza on Saturdays.
The 10 acres at La Selva sit on slightly rolling land; due to wind patterns and slope, soil conditions can differ widely in areas only a few hundred feet away. Joe spends on average $1,000/acre on compost to amend the soil.
