twodogfarm.biz

How long is your season?

We start selling lettuce to New Leaf Community Market in Santa Cruz and at the San Francisco Civic Center farmers market sometime in late May or early June. The dry farmed tomatoes start arriving sometime in August, are at most stores by mid September and start fading out in early November. We stop going to farmers markets to celebrate Thanksgiving (Farmer Appreciation Day!). We sell winter squash to stores out of storage, but we plow and cover crop the fields for the winter. Then we do paperwork and have a well-deserved rest! Greenhouse and field work begins again in February.

Where do you farm?

The irrigated greens field is north of Davenport (Santa Cruz county) surrounded by Big Basin Park. One of our dry tomato and winter squash fields is just across the creek. The other dry field is south of Davenport. All our fields are within sight of the ocean and are in beautiful, pristine locations. We have photos on the Where We Grow page.

What's with the dogs?

When we started Two Dog Farm in 2001, we had two fine farm dogs, Bill,the Australian Shepherd and Tavia, the shepherd/husky mix. Tavia died of old age(16) in 2004. We adopted Tahni,another husky mix who looks like Tavia for the logo in 2005. Bill just died last October 8, also of old age(15). In January we found a Border Collie/Australian Shepherd puppy to rescue. His name is Page (youthful assistant) and he's a wonderful addition to our family. He's smart and handsome, and a good friend to Tahni too. He was supposed to take Bill's place on the logo as the "down-eared" dog, but at about 4 months old, his ears popped up!
Our logo is by Chuck Overley.

Does dry-farming really mean that you don't water?

All of our tomatoes and winter squash are NEVER WATERED. No pre-irrigation, no drip, nothing. Farmers in hotter areas cannot successfully dry-farm. We start the tomatoes in a greenhouse, but once transplanted they have to find the moisture in the soil leftover from winter rains. In dry springs the tomato fruit often gets a small mark on the bottom from calcium deficiency. It also seems remarkable that the winter squash and pumpkins are direct seeded in early May, sprout and grow with no irrigation at all, sometimes in seemingly dry soil.

In addition to resource conservation, we believe that dry farming makes for more intensely flavored produce.

We do water our greens and flowers.

Why don't you grow (fill in the blank)?

We've grown a lot of different things since we started farming in 1984. What we grow in any given year depends on space, climate and marketing. We are open to suggestions, for example, we are now growing Lacinato Kale because of customer suggestions. We do not have much space in our irrigated field, but we love to try new things and fine tune our mix of products. Go ahead and ask! We love to talk about vegetables!

Do you have apprentices?

No, but we hire seasonal workers from April-November.

Are you a C.S.A.(Community Sponsored Agriculture)?

No, visit us at the farmers' market or ask for our produce at the stores.

We love to hear from you, feel free to write!