Introduction
We provide crop plants and consulting services to landowners who are looking for productive, water conserving food crops for their land.
The two primary crop plants we grow in our nursery are Agaves and Opuntias, also known as Prickly Pear cactus and Tuna cactus. Both Agaves and Prickly Pears are amazingly rugged and productive plants which thrive here in our climate and soils with very little if any supplemental irrigation in normal rainfall years. We consider these crops to be drought tolerant.(resistant?) Each crop also provides added benefits and advantages. Both crops are appropriate plantings in areas of potential wildfire, the Agaves being low fuel and the Opuntias no fuel. Both are appropriate plantings on slopes and hillsides the Agaves being especially noteworthy for erosion control.
We provide crop plants and consulting services to landowners who are looking for productive, water conserving food crops for their land.
The two primary crop plants we grow in our nursery are Agaves and Opuntias, also known as Prickly Pear cactus and Tuna cactus. Both Agaves and Prickly Pears are amazingly rugged and productive plants which thrive here in our climate and soils with very little if any supplemental irrigation in normal rainfall years. We consider these crops to be drought tolerant.(resistant?) Each crop also provides added benefits and advantages. Both crops are appropriate plantings in areas of potential wildfire, the Agaves being low fuel and the Opuntias no fuel. Both are appropriate plantings on slopes and hillsides the Agaves being especially noteworthy for erosion control.
We grow Agave species that have been traditionally and historically used for making mescal and tequila in Mexico and we hope to see that culture develop here in California.
We grow approximately forty different high quality and highly productive heirloom Opuntias with delicious edible fruit in various shades of yellow, green, orange, red and purple and an assortment of shapes and sizes. The fruit can be juiced and the resulting juice is very healthy enjoyed fresh, frozen, dried or freeze dried or preserved as syrup or jam. The juice can also be fermented and distilled, producing a remarkable and distinctive spirit.
We work with other water conserving food crops some of which we grow and others we procure from other growers. These crops include Olives, White Sapotes, Wine grapes and others.
We also grow and recommend Vetiver Grass as an erosion control and slope stabilizing planting where crops exist or are being planted on moderately or strongly sloping land where erosion is a problem.
Our consulting services include site evaluation, crop recommendations, project design, project development and installation (on-site supervision only, we are not contractors) and project management assistance. Our mission is to provide landowners with cutting edge crops and consulting expertise that will help them achieve a sustainable agricultural operation. One that includes plants that are well adapted to their soils and micro-climate that require little or no supplemental irrigation once established.
We grow approximately forty different high quality and highly productive heirloom Opuntias with delicious edible fruit in various shades of yellow, green, orange, red and purple and an assortment of shapes and sizes. The fruit can be juiced and the resulting juice is very healthy enjoyed fresh, frozen, dried or freeze dried or preserved as syrup or jam. The juice can also be fermented and distilled, producing a remarkable and distinctive spirit.
We work with other water conserving food crops some of which we grow and others we procure from other growers. These crops include Olives, White Sapotes, Wine grapes and others.
We also grow and recommend Vetiver Grass as an erosion control and slope stabilizing planting where crops exist or are being planted on moderately or strongly sloping land where erosion is a problem.
Our consulting services include site evaluation, crop recommendations, project design, project development and installation (on-site supervision only, we are not contractors) and project management assistance. Our mission is to provide landowners with cutting edge crops and consulting expertise that will help them achieve a sustainable agricultural operation. One that includes plants that are well adapted to their soils and micro-climate that require little or no supplemental irrigation once established.
Introduction to Opuntia List
Doug has personally gathered the Prickly Pear varieties in our collection primarily over the course of the last 15 years but some as far back as forty years ago. He has collected from friends, neighbors and accommodating strangers, from along fence lines, hillsides, roadsides and from old historic buildings.
Most of the parent plants from which pads were harvested for propagation were older, very well established plants that appeared to have been growing in their respective locations for a long time without any visible signs of care or irrigation, yet the plants were healthy, vigorous and also very productive. We have sampled the fruit from all of the various cultivars many times and are familiar with their individual flavor profile, juiciness, sweetness, pulp texture as well as size, shape and color. We consider these plants to be true heirlooms, which not only provide healthy, delicious fruit but also do it reliably and consistently with minimal care. These are very valuable plants (for our climate? Region?)
The names we have assigned to each of the different cultivars are not official, horticultural names. Some of these plants may have names already in Mexico or somewhere else but many of them may not. There is tremendous diversity in this collection of plants and each type brings a lot to the table in terms of desirable characteristics.
As a geographer it was natural for Doug to assign names to each variety that are place based but they are also somewhat descriptive. Where each plant was found, and the color of the fruit are a start in knowing each type, but the plant’s growth habits, size and form. The color of it’s pads, the overall productivity and the nature and quality of its fruit are other factors we describe in Opuntia Collection Descriptions.
Doug has personally gathered the Prickly Pear varieties in our collection primarily over the course of the last 15 years but some as far back as forty years ago. He has collected from friends, neighbors and accommodating strangers, from along fence lines, hillsides, roadsides and from old historic buildings.
Most of the parent plants from which pads were harvested for propagation were older, very well established plants that appeared to have been growing in their respective locations for a long time without any visible signs of care or irrigation, yet the plants were healthy, vigorous and also very productive. We have sampled the fruit from all of the various cultivars many times and are familiar with their individual flavor profile, juiciness, sweetness, pulp texture as well as size, shape and color. We consider these plants to be true heirlooms, which not only provide healthy, delicious fruit but also do it reliably and consistently with minimal care. These are very valuable plants (for our climate? Region?)
The names we have assigned to each of the different cultivars are not official, horticultural names. Some of these plants may have names already in Mexico or somewhere else but many of them may not. There is tremendous diversity in this collection of plants and each type brings a lot to the table in terms of desirable characteristics.
As a geographer it was natural for Doug to assign names to each variety that are place based but they are also somewhat descriptive. Where each plant was found, and the color of the fruit are a start in knowing each type, but the plant’s growth habits, size and form. The color of it’s pads, the overall productivity and the nature and quality of its fruit are other factors we describe in Opuntia Collection Descriptions.