All About Spade & Plow Apricots
what a fortuitous time for our community!
Alright, folks. It’s a moment we’ve been waiting for. They’re here! The apricots are here! With the transition to the Van Dyke Ranch this past winter, we’ve slowly watched the barren apricot trees turn green, and more recently, fruit to a blushed orange. These trees have lots of history in the Valley of the Hearts Delight, and it is a great privilege to be able to share them with you.
A Brief History of the Van Dyke Ranch
The Van Dyke Ranch got its start in the early 1920s in Cupertino, CA, right here in Santa Clara County. From a young age, Betty Van Dyke enjoyed farming alongside her father, and eventually took over operations in the 1960s.
The farm relocated in the 1970s to the base of the Gavilan Mountains, rich with alluvial soil, and exposed to lots and lots of sun. Spade & Plow is fortunate enough to be farming the same land today. Betty Van Dyke was a pioneer of early organic fruit production, converting the land from a conventional operation to an organic one in the 1980s, around the same time Farmer Mike began farming organically! Though the transition to organic was a big deal back then, Betty was sure to follow in her father's footsteps in traditional orchard ranching. The Blenheims were (and are) their signature crop, along with a peppering of cherries, persimmons, and walnuts.
A young Betty Van Dyke with her prized apricots
Betty’s son Peter took over the farm operations in the 1990s, and together, the two of them have been a great source of education and advocacy for the farming community in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz Counties. A huge advocate for land preservation in the area, Betty was adamant before her passing this past April, that the land she fought hard to grow and sustain, remained an agricultural operation.
We have some big shoes to fill, though none as sweet or tangy as the apricot-soaked soils that the Van Dykes have fostered for so long.
Reaping the Bounty
As many of the aging apricot trees on the Van Dyke Ranch were uprooted earlier this year to help pave the way for Spade & Plow row crops, a few orchards have remained on the property for processing. The Van Dyke’s Blenheim apricots are primarily sold as a dried commodity. Around this time every year, if you were to stumble upon the Van Dyke Ranch, you’d find a sea of apricots, sliced in half and laid out by hand on shallow wooden trays for curing under the warm Gilroy sun.
Spade & Plow is excited to be able to source fruit right from the very trees that generously shade us during our lunch breaks, and hold such rich history in Santa Clara County.
When we signed the lease earlier this spring, and updated our grower’s permit and our CCOF organic certifications, we were able to include the apricots. What does this mean? It means that Peter Van Dyke and his crew get all the credit for our ripe & juicy jams this summer, but because we are farming the land, we have the opportunity to sell our fruit at the farmers market, and of course, offer them in the CSA!
Van Dyke apricots drying in the sun.
Where to find the cots!
We’ve got apricots going out to our farmers markets this weekend! Come find them Saturday at Cabrillo College 8a-12p or Morgan Hill 9a-1p, and at Mountain View on Sunday 9a-1p.
Flats are available for the CSA this week, and for the next several weeks ahead. Before long, we’ll have dried fruit to sustain us through the fall and winter months.