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The San Juan Bautista Farmers Market, launched on May 18 by Discover San Juan Bautista, will conclude on Nov. 2, coinciding with the time when growers become occupied with winter plantings in local fields, replacing the exhausted crops of summer and fall.
“We’ve had some great vendors,” said Discover’s Heliena Walton. “We’ve been very pleased with the turnout and participation from beginning to end, and having the chance to support local organic farmers right at our doorstep.”
One of those vendors, Maria Gonzales of Green Thumb Farm, is already known in town as the owner of Cultiva Artistic Cuisine, San Juan’s first vegan restaurant.
“When we go to the farmers’ market,” she said, “it feels like we’re getting in touch with family. They’ve seen our son grow up since I was carrying him in a little kangaroo pouch. We get to build on that relationship with our clients and get to know their stories.”
Green Thumb was conceived in 2015 when Rudy Jimenez, Gonzales’ partner, and his father, Rodolfo Jiménez, enrolled in a farming course offered by the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA) in Salinas. The program offers a several-year training program to help farmers and workers gain experience in organic and sustainable farming.
“His dad had gotten injured through conventional farming,” she said. “He wanted to take his dad’s experience and grow it into a different relationship.”
Gonzales said that Rudy was motivated to study organic farming after realizing that his hometown of Salinas produced “a high percentage of the food that gets moved around the world,” but had very few farms that were organic-based.
“He found out that he didn’t have access to healthy food,” she said. “Working with his father, he realized that they needed healing and more access to organic foods, which was the whole reason he started Green Thumb Farms.”
According to Gonzales, Rudy and Rodolfo began the ALBA program by working with a quarter acre and ended up, after yearly increases, with five acres. She said they learned “a little bit of everything” about the difference between organic and conventional farming.
“They learned how to care for the land,” she said, “and what it is to take care of the soil. How to start seedlings and different ways of watering crops. We still do drip tape to this day because we feel that it’s a lot more effective than sprinklers.”
In 2020, the family purchased four acres of land in San Juan Bautista, near Hwy 156 heading toward Hollister, and in 2024, added 19 acres in Watsonville. Having the two farms allows Green Thumb greater diversity in crops due to the differences in soils and climates.
“Here,” Gonzales said, “the soil is very sandy, so it absorbs the water really quickly. Peppers, eggplant, melons, and tomatoes do well. In Watsonville; the soil retains the moisture a lot more, so strawberries, cauliflower and cabbage tend to grow a lot faster over there.”
Gonzales said that the farm only purchases organic seeds or plants started by trusted sources and uses only organic fertilizers to avoid adding chemicals to the foods they sell. Crop rotation is also important to keep the soil healthy and productive.
“My partner and I drive through the different towns,” she said, “and we think, ‘Hey, we’ve seen strawberries growing there since we were kids.’ You have to keep rotating because you want to enrich the soil.”
Rotating crops, Gonzales said, also helps to trick the “little critters” who can ravage crops, and keep them “from thinking that it’s their home and they can come back every so often.”
There is one form of little creatures that are welcome to the farm, Gonzales said. Green Thumb regularly hosts school groups who come for an education in farming best practices and, sometimes, for a few surprises.
“A lot of these students have never seen a purple broccolini,” she said, “or a different squash or colors of peppers that are not in the grocery store. We want to open their minds to different vegetables and flavors that their palates haven’t tasted yet.“
Gonzales said that it is part of creating a relationship with the children that will help them understand where their food comes from and how it is grown, including inviting them to a summer intern program for hands-on learning.
“We want organic food to be accessible to them,” she said. “Getting close to our clients kind of keeps us going. We have been here 10 years, and we want, hopefully, to be doing this another 10 years or more.”
Gonzales said that the expansion to Watsonville, selling at five markets, and the increase in work as the farm expands its variety of products have really underlined how tiring the life of a farmer can be.
“In our busy season,” she said, “we have over 15-hour days and might only sleep for two or three hours. It’s hard for us to balance our personal life and our work life, finding time to heal so that we can do this for the long run.”
Finding that balance is one reason Gonzales said she had to put Cultiva on the back burner, as Green Thumb has expanded in popularity more rapidly than she anticipated. The restaurant location on Third Street is now mainly used for producing juices, salsas, and granolas, which she sells at the five farmers’ markets she attends, both in San Juan, near her home farm, and in more distant venues like San Francisco.
“I know a lot of people miss the food,” she said, “so we have some special events coming up in the form of more intimate meals.”
The next dinner, on Nov. 1, will include pumpkin-stuffed French toast, truffle-roasted potatoes, a seasonal veggie tofu scramble, and cempasúchil (marigold) soup.
“The soup is something which a lot of people haven’t had,” she said, “but it is very good. The events are just something fun, something unique, to keep our whole concept of farm-to-table meals going.”
While the farmers market is going to be closing after the first weekend in November, Walton said that Discover San Juan will be hosting it again next year.
“We’re going to be bringing it again every week,” Walton said, “so that people can enjoy fresh fruit and vegetables right here in town. We would love to see more people in town come and see what our local farms offer.”
Participants in the San Juan Farmers Market:
- Angel Farms
- Catalán Distribution
- Coastal Paradise plants
- Cultiva
- Greig’s Acres
- Heavenly Place Bakery
- Larra McGale Bracelets
- Las Lomas Lavender
- Lily’s Fresh Fruit
- Livin’ the Green Dream
The San Juan Bautista Farmers Market is located at 310 Third Street from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and runs through Nov. 2 on Sundays.
Green Thumb products can be ordered online, with an option for deliveries of weekly and bi-weekly “abundance boxes.” While the farm is not open to drop-in visitors, tours for individuals or groups can be arranged by contacting Gonzales at maria@greenthumborganicsfarms.com.
Cultiva will be hosting its next farm-to-table brunch on Nov. 1. Tickets are available through Eventbrite.
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Recommendations for future Eat, Drink, Savor articles can be emailed to roberteliason@benitolink.com.
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