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About Us
Our little farm started out when we bought one acre in Catalina, next to the Rulaja Arabian horse ranch,
in 1975. I was looking around at the trees and the mountains, and Wayne was picking up the soil and checking out its
texture and fertility. Before long we had a 50 by 100 foot vegetable garden, and a freezer full of corn and cauliflower.
Several years down the road the horse ranch sold some of its property, and we had 5 more acres. This was the start of
the pistachio orchard. We put in the well in 1979, and started hundreds of pistachio seedlings, 300 of which were planted... a whole
orchard of two inch trees! For that story, see The Pistachio Orchard below. In time the horse ranch sold
some more land, and we had 5 more acres. We would grow corn, melons, acorn squash, even lettuce and green onions in
large quantities just trying to see what would sell and how we could sell it. What we couldn't sell went to the Food
Bank. Meanwhile we'd made use of the tree bowls around the young pistachios and planted asparagus. We sold seedless watermelons on the corner of Golder Ranch and Oracle before anyone ever saw them in the stores,
and even before Bashas moved to Tucson, nevermind to that corner. We went to the Tanque Verde Swap Meet when it was
still on Tanque Verde and Grant Rd. and sold produce. We sold to a "middle woman" who sold our asparagus at the St.
Phillips Plaza farmer's market. We sold at the farmer's market downtown in the parking lot of the B&B.
Finally we started selling right from the house, "Fresh Local" corn and asparagus, with a series of cardboard
box signs leading the way. That felt as temporary as it sounds, so we laid low for a few years and figured out how to
really do this right. Of course that took money, but in time Wayne and Jesse put up a shed, and we had a shed painting
party. The dogs and rabbits told us we had to fence in the annual crops, so we did. In the summer of 2002 we opened "Our Garden" as a pick your own. It didn't take long to see we'd be more
efficient by selling out of the garden shed, and here we are now, with the berries telling us they need more water.
The new stronger pump went in last year, and now there is another row of pecans to eventually shade them as I prefer
to dry the fruit on purpose. Winter seedlings still say we need a greenhouse, though I've been sharing my
little one.. and thinning out my own plant collection in the process. Jesse's plants now have their shade structure,
and the birds are happy we haven't done the bird "exclosure" for the tomatoes as well as a better netting system
for the grapes and peaches. We've just grown more tomatoes and now have people out in the grapes. Wow, I just updated this page a bit and am realizing we've about added another paragraph to our history
already. No wonder I feel older! |
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The Pistachio Orchard People keep showing great interest in the pistachios, and not just in eating them. This 4 acre orchard was what got
the ball rolling some 25 years ago. Wayne had been in grad school at the U of A, in horticulture, and doing his
thesis on pistachio cultivation when the opportunity to buy 5 acres from our neighbor, Rulaja, came up. Finally the
thesis gave in to the orchard.. he's just a doing kind of guy, and had had enough of school by then, ready to learn on
the job. That whole orchard was put in with only a rented Ditch Witch to trench for irrigation lines, and our old Troy Built rototiller.
We started hundreds of pistachio seeds, bought from a grower in AZ. These little guys were transplanted in over 300
sites. After a couple years the ones who survived were ready for budding. The ones who weren't were replaced,
and we are still replacing trees to this day for various reasons. Once the trees had grown enough, we planted asparagus around each of them. Each tree had a border to contain
its water, a tree well, and we made use of that border with the asparagus. This is the asparagus we sold at St. Phillips
Plaza, downtown at a Farmer's Market, and from the house with the cardboard signs. It really hit home when we realized
we were paying our kids more to harvest the asparagus than we were making selling it! That is the reality of agribusiness
in the US today. So those tree seedlings are the rootstocks, the variety of pistachio whose root system will do the best in these growing
conditions. The buds that are slipped into the bark of the rootstocks are the varieties that give the best nuts for
eating. They generally give a heavy crop on alternate years, and 2007 should be one of those. The nuts ripen
in the fall, and harvesting means knocking them out of the trees with a piece of PVC pipe. (The big boys use tree shaking
machines.) They fall onto a tarp and are collected and taken to our processing table, where we rub the husks off.
This has to be done within 24 hours. Then we dry them in the sun. They can be rinsed in a brine solution and seasoned,
and dried again, or can be eaten as is, my favorite way. If there are any left I store them in the freezer. |
We had our first 2 harvests with friends Sept. 28 and 30, 2004. I had started taking down names and phone numbers
of the people who kept asking about harvesting, and we ended up with 2 small groups, just right for testing the waters, five
of us the first day (including Jesse and myself), and ten the second day. We know we won't be set up to sell the
nuts in our stand for several years, as there are so many other projects that need attention, but this gave some of you a
chance to try the nuts and experiment with your own seasonings and with drying or roasting. And now these people
can spread the word that as a non-mechanized project this is extremely labor intensive! But it felt like a barn
raising party (w/o the beer, etc, but maybe Michael can fix that one this year....) so now I'm thinking nevermind
the dehusking machine, we just need more tarps and a couple more dehusking tables so we can handle 3 times as many people!
THANKS to everyone who participated in our first fumbling effort. You have continued to raise the good vibes of this
place.
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