About Curbstone Valley Farm...
Curbstone Valley Farm is a small private family farm located in the Santa Cruz Mountains, in California. We're located in USDA Zone 9b (Sunset Western Garden Zone 15). The Farm is situated on seven-and-a-half secluded acres, with a lot of...potential...yes, that's it, POTENTIAL!
As we find ourselves with more room than we've had before, and because of increasing food costs, and the poor flavorless characteristics of commercially produced produce, we've decided to make our property more productive.
Rather than rush into planting, we've spent the first two years plotting, scheming, planning, and getting to know the place. There are certainly lots of challenges between the wildlife, the terrain, and drainage issues around the property, but we are developing a respect and understanding for what can be done here. Slopes are after all excellent locations for orchards, and small vineyards. Working on slopes however can be very challenging!
Curbstone Valley Farm is a work in progress, and no doubt will be for some time to come. The property was largely ignored for more than 10 years before we acquired it, so much of our time the past two years has been spent removing enormous poison oak vines, sick, dead and dying trees, understory rampant weed growth, including some rather unfavorable non-native species, and ascertaining the best locations on the land to plant. We've since recognized the severe deer pressure on this property, the vast underground metropolis of gopher, mole and vole tunnels, and huge hoards of ravenous browsing bunnies.
Through all of this planning and scheming though, we remain mindful as to why we moved here to begin with. We're surrounded by beautiful trees, native plants and wildflowers, and abundant wildlife. Of the land we have here, we only intend to use a very small area. The rest will be left as we found it, beyond the routine annual trimming for fire prevention. We are also striving to keep the invasive non-native plants in check, and restore native plant species to the property that have been previously displaced.