Field Notes | How It All Began with Farmer Brooke

As a young adult, I dreamed of growing and selling farm to table foods for my own brand. Growing up in Southern California, I developed a love for the ocean and natural world. My affinity for the land, healthy living, and natural foods eventually led me to move north in order to study Agriculture at Humboldt State and then on to Arizona to complete my studies at Prescott College. My vision was to grow nutritious, organic foods, and sell them to my community in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the early days, I sold my crops at Farmers Markets. In 2000, my dream to own land finally became a reality when I purchased 88 acres of pastureland in Sebastopol. Over the next few years I planted orchards with olive, apple, and citrus trees and Gold Ridge Organic Farms was born!

Luther Burbank Called it one of the best climates in the world...

Located 50 miles northwest of San Francisco in West Sonoma County, the farm's proximity to the Pacific Ocean offers unique conditions for farming. Temperatures are cooler here, thanks to our ridge top location and breezes from the Sonoma Coast. I have found the single biggest factor that changes the quality of food is the climate. So here, there is a pronounced fog influence. Fog is a rare beautiful phenomenon, a natural wonder. During the summer, the fog is much more pronounced because there is a tug-of-war happening between the heat in the Central Valley and the cold air off of the ocean. This moderates the climate.

Where we’re located is called a cool coastal influence. What that means during the summertime is that we get a nice cooling effect starting in the afternoon and throughout the whole evening. Then it burns off at about 10 am and then comes back in the afternoon. That repeats most days. It’s this beautiful dance that takes place all summer. It creates what Luther Burbank calls one of the best climates in the world. The Gold Ridge soil is among the best in the country: the sandy loam possesses an ideal natural chemical balance and provides excellent drainage. 

Why olives, apples, and citrus?

I started out back in 2000 with heirloom apples, a diversity of table grapes, plums, Euro pears, and Asian pears. I still have the pears, but it’s only a couple percent of what I grow. The table grapes didn’t really do what I wanted so I pulled those up and started putting Fuji apples on trellises. At that time, Honeycrisp was bursting on the scene. I was waiting to see how that transpired, but I did start planting them. Today, 90% of the apples I have are split evenly between Fuji and Honeycrisp and about 10% are still the heirloom apples. So I call the heirloom apples, ‘the spice’ and I call the Fuji and Honeycrisp, ‘the bread and butter. The olive trees not only struck me as incredibly beautiful, but they are able to thrive in dry, warmer climates. This bounty of fruit varieties produce crops that nourish and are able to be used in so many different ways — from Extra Virgin olive oils, apple cider vinegars and syrups, to citrus infused olive oils, soaps, and more.

I hope that you are able to come and visit us at Gold Ridge Organic Farms to see, touch, smell, and taste the difference that sustainable and organic farming makes. Until then, please enjoy our farm products and feel good about knowing where they came from - and know that they were made with love.

_{Brooke Hazen, Founder and Farmer}