Workers stood in waist-high greenery in a quarter-mile-long stretch of crops in Hollister packing, cutting and stacking celery on a cool December morning.
The crisp, green vegetable that was in their hands is one of about 50 organic types of crops grown by Phil Foster Ranches, which farms 295 acres in Hollister and San Juan Bautista and sells to about 25 retail stores including Whole Foods Markets and eight year-round farmers’ markets.
The business first began experimenting with a few acres of organic produce in 1989 and eventually expanded to completely organic production.
“I guess my original motivation was economic,” said Phil Foster, the owner and founder of the ranches. “Over the years it was probably a move that allowed me to stay in business.”
Phil and his wife, Katherine, are about as local as it gets with him running ranches within the county during the day and her teaching health, anatomy and physiology at nearby San Benito High School.
They farm produces crops such as lettuce, cauliflower, snap peas, strawberries, onions, peppers apples and carrots. The Fosters also pack their own apples, which they use to make organic apple juice under the name Pinnacle Organic or send to Martinelli’s, an apple juice and cider company that makes its products only with U.S.-grown apples.
The variety of produce grown year-round at the site allows the Fosters to rotate crops so they don’t exhaust the local soil. It also provides retailers with a greater variety of items they can purchase, which increases the chance of sales throughout the year.
Having so many crops has a secondary benefit, too: It’s beautiful.
On a typical day, the plants in the fields surrounding the Fosters’ house at their San Juan Bautista ranch form rectangles of purple, silver gray and dark green.
“A lot of times I can look out over the fields and they’re very colorful,” Katherine Foster said. “It looks like a really beautiful quilt.”
To keep crops growing year-round, the Fosters have installed about 12 acres of hoop houses-arched spaces with a clear plastic roof that keep in the sun’s warmth-to extend the growing season of certain crops such as bell peppers, tomatoes and lettuce. Harvesting crops throughout the year means full-time employment for their workers, many of which have worked at the farm for at least 10 years.
“Certainly if someone is a real valuable employee, the goal is to keep them,” said Phil Foster, who added that training employees to properly harvest so many crops takes a lot of energy.
At the ranches, the focus isn’t just on organic production but also on sustainability. Phil first started using biodiesel in 2003 because it was soybean based and he liked the idea of using a fuel that came from something that had been grown on a farm in the United States.
“I just liked the idea of using it,” he said. “I just liked the idea of using a recycled project.”
A solar panel system followed last year with the installation of a 60-kilowatt system, which offsets 40 percent of the electricity needed to run five wells. The second system they are installing will offset 80 percent of the power used in the cooling room.
For the Fosters, the organic status of the ranches means fresh fruits and vegetables go literally from the farm into the house and onto the table.
“We walk out into our fields and stick it immediately into our mouths and I have no problem doing that,” she said. “I’m not the least bit concerned about doing that.”
As he inspected the morning harvest, his dogs “Sadie” and “Suzy” alternated between staring lovingly at their owner, jumping into the cab of the white pickup truck to look out the window as he drove through fields and racing through crops to check out the harvesting process. The mist hung in distance and rolling hills rose up behind the fields.
“This is a pretty little valley here,” he said. “It’s nice to end up here.”
