[Photos courtesy of the Vincent family]
Exiting the freeway at Winchester Canyon, Goleta, I wonder if I’m going the right way. Though I’ve been coming out here for 30 years, it’s usually just during apricot season. I slow down, on the lookout for the sign directing me to Vincent Farm. It’s a one-way lane, so I drive slowly, fields of apricot trees coming into view on my left, the farmhouse on my right. Parking my car near the classic red barn, I stand in the drive and take a sweeping look around.
To visit Vincent Farm is to take a step back in time. It’s so peaceful here. Sure, there are modern cars and farm machinery, but the farmhouse and barn and other buildings seem to be early 1900s. I can’t see other houses, really, or much else of civilization.
The apricot orchard slopes gently upward, and the hill behind rises steeply, too steep to plant trees. Once upon a time, a previous farmer planted lima beans all the way to the top of the hill. Now, five acres of Royal Blenheim apricot trees dominate the landscape, looking like a rural scene from a hundred years ago, although these trees were planted in 1982.
On the day I come to interview Don and Bonnie Vincent and one of their two daughters, Breana, it’s a gorgeous spring afternoon on the farm, breezy and a little bit cool. The cover crop between the trees is still lush and green.
Don is a tall man, quiet and thoughtful. Bonnie is grounded and direct. Breana grew up here and fills in facts as the story of how they came to this place unfolds. Farming, and especially the kind of farming they practice, is their passion.
Don and Bonnie Vincent bought this 54-acre farm in 1975 from the Langlo family. The Langlos had built the farm, including a traditional farmhouse, barn and outbuildings, in 1912. Originally, it was 100 acres, but they later divided it, selling the portion which had largely been a walnut orchard to a developer for housing.
Don grew up in Santa Barbara. While his family lived in town, they had a 22-acre farm in Goleta near San Pedro Creek, to the west of where the Miner’s Ace Hardware store now stands. His parents farmed chiefly walnuts, tomatoes and lima beans. Don’s great-grandfather, John G. Prell, was a farmer in Santa Maria beginning in the 1860s, so Don grew up immersed in farming, though he wasn’t certain he would choose it as his future.
After Don served three years in the army and married Bonnie in 1973, the Vincents lived near downtown Santa Barbara. They were raising chickens and decided they needed more land so as not to disturb the neighbors. In 1973, they started a 22-acre farm on Old San Marcos Road, growing oranges and avocados, which they farmed until 1978.
Eventually they decided to look for a larger farm, and considered the spot in Winchester Canyon several months before they purchased it. Coming back to it a few months later, the price had been substantially lowered, and it was the right time to buy. Though they purchased it in 1975, they leased out the farmhouse for several years as they began to prepare for what they would grow.
The Vincents moved in and started actively farming their parcel in 1979, beginning with tomatoes, garbanzos and blue-lake beans, and an already existing lemon orchard. Their farm did not come with its own well, and city water was expensive. They began exploring what they could grow that did not require adding extra water. They consulted long-time farmers in the area and looked at older farming books for guidance.
Dry-farming, as it’s called, is a time-honored farming method. Don says, “People used to dry-farm beans all over these hills, in Santa Barbara County and down towards Oxnard.”
The Vincents considered planting an orchard. Apricots! It was their favorite fruit anyway, so if they couldn’t sell them, at least they’d have something they liked. Farm advisor George Goodall, who worked for the University of California Extension, recommended a variety of apricots called Royal Blenheim, which could be dry-farmed successfully. His turned out to be very good advice.
Once ripe, Blenheims don’t ship well, but they have an intense flavor. They must get to market quickly. They are gorgeous fruits with a deep, rosy blush where the sun has hit them. When I discovered the Vincents’ orchard I was thrilled, as I grew up with a Blenheim apricot tree in my backyard and knew how good they are. Truly, other apricots don’t compare.
Dry-Farming
What does it mean to “dry-farm?” We somehow imagine a garden without water, but that is not accurate. Dry-farming means a crop is grown without added water, relying only on annual rainfall. The farmer must capture that rainfall. He or she does this by retaining moisture in the soil, which must be carefully prepared by adding mulch and other amendments and by a variety of farming techniques.
“The best thing for soil health is to feed, water and mow,” says Don. But if you must dry-farm, he’s developed a way to do it. His method works beautifully for his apricot orchard. In the winter, he grows a nutritious cover crop around the trees. It consists largely of clover, mustard and a weed called filaree, in the geranium family. He planted this years ago, and now it reseeds itself annually. The cover crop grows tall and lush if we get rain. In the spring, the cover crop is mowed down and allowed to dry. A very lightweight tractor is used, as it does less harm to the trees and prevents soil compacting.
After about a month, using a tractor with a discing harrower, Don discs the soil around the trees, cutting and turning the cover crop. Later, he’ll go over the disced cover crop again, but this time with a “spike tooth” attachment that leaves a fine dust mulch that insulates the moisture level below, like a blanket. Cutting down the cover crop ensures that the weeds don’t compete with the apricot trees, which need all the water for their growing season. The disced and spiked cover crop breaks down, feeding the earthworms and other soil critters. Earthworms thrive below the mulch, further aerating the soil around the trees as well as depositing their nutritious waste.
Although dry-farming is an old, even ancient farming technique, it may also be fashionably modern again. One only has to look at the condition of the water table in California’s Central Valley (severely depleted—even after the last two years of abundant rain) to wish that farmers had been able to practice dry-farming techniques more extensively.
But it also means that there are some lean years. The Vincents have about 350 apricot trees. Many are the original trees planted in 1982, though Don replaces some of the trees each year. In very dry years, the trees survive—they have deep roots—but simply do not put out much fruit, greatly reducing the income for those years. Not all crops can be dry-farmed and, in fact, the other trees on the farm need added water. The farm also produces and sells avocados, citrus, grapes, apples, persimmons, other stone fruits and flowers.
The arrival of summer heralds the most exciting time on the farm—apricot season. Years ago, I brought my family here to help me pick (and sample!) the delicious fruit. My best friend and her kids often came with, and those were idyllic days, small children in tow, all of us delighted by the magical environment as well as the tasty harvest.
We’d pick the fruit, put it into buckets, weigh it and drop a check into the payment box. But more recently, social media attention to the farm brought more traffic than a small farm could handle, so now the way to get the precious fruit is to place an order before the season and arrange for a pickup (pre-orders are taken in May).
Don, Bonnie, Breana and other family members do the picking themselves. Breana reaches out to customers by email, keeping us abreast of the start of the season, sometime in June. (Currently, the farm does not come to local farmers markets, though occasionally, if apricots are abundant, they might be available at Mesa Produce during the season.)
For me and many other customers, the Vincent Farm apricot season is an annual ritual. I’ll buy a box weighing approximately 15 pounds, and what we don’t eat out of hand gets turned into apricot jam or apricot crostata. Apricot gelato, anyone?
I also love to preserve the apricots, halved and pitted, then packed into canning jars in a light syrup, which is easier than making jam and a lot less sweet. We eat these for dessert in the winter with a dollop of yogurt. And any extra fruit can be easily frozen on trays, then popped into freezer bags or containers for later use. Wrapped well, the fruit keeps for months. Apricots are also delicious when dried in a dehydrator.
After Harvest: Pruning Season
Apricot trees are usually pruned in January, when stone fruits are at their most dormant. But Don and Breana dedicate the entire month of August to pruning after the trees are finished fruiting. At this time of year, the wood is dry, and pruning during this dry time of year helps prevent the spread of a fungus, called Eutypa dieback, that the apricot trees are susceptible to. They pitchfork the trimmed branches into windrows between the trees, then “munch” them with the tractor, so that everything goes back into the soil.
Vincent Farm uses organic growing techniques, although they no longer have organic certification. The paperwork required for certification is voluminous and time-consuming. Long-time customers know that their produce will be grown with care and of the highest quality.
Other Crops and the Next Generation
The Vincents’ daughter Breana left a career in education and nonprofits to work on the farm. Besides assisting with the abundant farmwork, Breana is largely the active interface with their customers and the larger community. She sends out informative and fascinating seasonal emails to their customer list every few weeks, detailing the available farm products. Breana also shares photos of the farming process throughout the year, with captions explaining the work season by season.
Besides apricots, Vincent Farm offers other fruits for sale, though in smaller quantities, nearly year-round. These include, in late winter, several varieties of tangerines; in spring, Kenny Grapefruits, a rare variety that is a cross between a grapefruit and a navel orange and is extra juicy and sweet; in summer, Hass and Lamb-Hass avocados, plums and peaches; in the fall, apples, Iona and Concord grapes, occasional pears, and both Hachiya and Fuyu persimmons.
Dried fruits such as persimmons are also available, as well as fruit preserves, and Breana grows gorgeous flowers, which she sells as bouquets and wreaths. She also sells lovely greeting cards with photographic images she’s taken of flowers, plants and farm scenes.
A dream I share with the Vincents is that this farm continues long into the future. The Vincents love what they do. Don says he never fails to stop and appreciate the farm during the day and that is he is grateful to be here.
The farming techniques practiced here in Goleta are just what our climate-challenged world needs. Goleta, after all, means, “the good land.”
Resources
For a recipe using fresh apricots, see Pascale Beale’s “Sunflower” Apricot Tart. Vincent Farm is open for fruit and flower pickups by appointment only. Sign up for their email list for farm updates and produce availability at www.VincentFarmGoleta.com.
