Farms Near Monterey, CA

Monterey

Monterey Farmers' Market at MPC is held on the campus of Monterey Peninsula College at 930 Fremont Street. It's one of several certified farmers' markets on the Monterey Peninsula, drawing on Salinas Valley growers just inland.

Monterey

Not a farm — this is a walking ghost tour through historic Old Monterey, running since 2002. Tours last 90 minutes to two hours and cover local hauntings and a night walk through a graveyard, typically Saturday nights into early November.

Monterey

Old Monterey Farmers' Market runs along Alvarado Street in downtown Monterey, between Del Monte and Pearl, a few blocks from Fisherman's Wharf and the city's historic adobe district. Current schedule, vendor list, and contact details aren't confirmed online.

Monterey

Ag Venture Tours has run wine tasting, sightseeing, and agricultural education tours around Monterey Bay since 1997, making it the region's oldest operating tour company. Owner Evan Oakes, who holds agricultural degrees from UC Davis and Fresno State and previously worked as a UC Cooperative Extension research scientist in Salinas, leads half-day and full-day van and walking tours with private tastings available on request.

Monterey

This market sets up in the parking area of Del Monte Center, at the intersection of Highway 1 and Highway 68 — the largest shopping center on the Monterey Peninsula. It draws from the peninsula's coastal growers as well as farms just inland in the Salinas Valley.

Del Monte Center's certified market pulls vendors from the Salinas Valley, often called the salad bowl of the world for its produce output, as well as smaller growers along the Monterey Peninsula itself. The center sits at the junction of Highway 1 and Highway 68 in Monterey.

This Cannery Row storefront is Carmel Honey Company's Monterey outpost, stocking the same raw, unfiltered honey pulled from the company's own hives as their Carmel Plaza shop. Alongside jarred honey and honeycomb, the counter sells honey-based bath and beauty products and corporate gift boxes.

Monterey

Cardinale & Wright runs its pumpkin patch each fall on the grounds of the Monterey County Fairgrounds, open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with a midday closure from noon to 1. Beyond the pumpkin rows there's a hay maze and a cow train ride for kids, all inside the fairgrounds' gates rather than out in an open field. It's more fairground event than working farm, but the pumpkins are real.

Pacific Grove

Pacific Grove Farmers' Market runs Monday afternoons at Central and Grand avenues, one of six Certified Farmers' Markets the Salinas-based nonprofit Everyone's Harvest operates around Monterey County, alongside markets in Marina, Alisal, Natividad, Seaside, and Salinas. Reach the organization by phone or email for current hours and vendor questions.

Carmel Honey Company's flagship retail counter sits inside Carmel Plaza in Carmel-by-the-Sea, selling raw, unfiltered honey and honeycomb harvested from hives the company keeps and manages itself. The shop also carries honey-based bath and beauty products and gift boxes built around single-source honey rather than blends.

Carmel-by-the-Sea

The Barnyard Shopping Village is an outdoor retail center at 3663 The Barnyard in Carmel, off Highway 1, with more than 50 stores, restaurants, and galleries set among garden landscaping. The venue regularly hosts farmers markets, car shows, and live music alongside its regular tenants. Management can be reached at (831) 624-8886.

Carmel

Carmel's certified farmers' market sets up Tuesday mornings, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., in the parking area at The Barnyard Shopping Village, and runs seasonally from May through September. Monterey Bay Certified Farmers Markets organizes it and rotates in a free booth for a local nonprofit each week. Vendors bring fresh produce, nuts, flowers, live plants, and baked goods.

Pebble Beach

Earthbound Farm Stand sits on Carmel Valley Road, 3.5 miles east of Highway 1. The stand runs a full organic café — breakfast, sandwiches, smoothies, house-made baked goods — alongside fresh organic produce, flowers, local beer and wine, and a garden where visitors can pick their own herbs and berries. Open daily except a handful of major holidays.

Carmel

The 16-acre Carmel Valley estate that operated as Chateau Julien Wine Estate, known for its French-style architecture and Chardonnay and Merlot dating to 1985, sold in 2015 for $12 million and now runs under new ownership as Folktale Winery.

Carmel

The Holly Farm has run as a family-owned wedding and event venue on Carmel Valley Road since 1991, not a working farm despite the name — six and a half acres of gardens, sun-filled cottages, and winding paths built out for destination weddings and retreats. Packages start around $61,000 according to third-party wedding-planning sites.

Carmel-by-the-Sea

Serendipity Farms is on Carmel Valley Road, inland from Carmel-by-the-Sea in a valley known for small wine estates and produce farms between the coastal range and the Carmel River. Monterey County's mild inland climate supports year-round growing in this area.

Carmel

Carmel Valley Ranch is a luxury hotel and resort on Old Ranch Road in Carmel Valley, California, built on the site of a historic cattle ranch in the Carmel Valley wine region.

Marina Certified Farmers' Market sets up on Reservation Road in the city of Marina, on Monterey Bay just north of the Monterey Peninsula. It draws on the Salinas Valley's produce region, one of the most productive farming areas on the Central Coast.

Carmel Valley

Gardener Ranch is on West Carmel Valley Road in Carmel Valley, California, an events property whose site currently describes itself as being reworked, with booking handled through existing partners rather than public inquiries.

Pezzini Farms has grown Green Globe artichokes in Castroville, California, the self-proclaimed Artichoke Capital of the World, since 1926. The family farm sells heirloom artichoke varieties fresh alongside a line of artichoke dips, oils, vinegars, and pasta made from its own harvest.

Moss Landing

Monterey Bay Equestrian Center has led horseback rides along the dunes between Moss Landing and Monterey since 1981. Guides take riders out Monterey Dunes Way with views that stretch to Santa Cruz on a clear day, and the outfit also runs horse-drawn carriages for weddings and pony parties for kids. Riders must be at least 10 years old and 54 inches tall. Call ahead to book a ride.

The Farm in Salinas is a working farm off Highway 68 at the Spreckels Boulevard exit, open for flower u-pick Monday through Saturday and a fall pumpkin patch with a hay maze and slides. Weekends bring food trucks and rows of sunflowers and zinnias ready for cutting. It's one of Monterey County's longer-running agritourism stops, not a staged event ground.

Casey Redtail Ranch continues a family tradition begun when Irish emigrant Jeremiah Casey homesteaded southern Monterey County, California in 1861 — antibiotic- and hormone-free, grass-fed and finished beef raised free range on the Central Coast. Short-duration, high-density grazing builds soil and forage health, and USDA-butchered beef sells in eighth "sampler" through full shares.

Corral de Tierra Cattle Co grass-finishes Black Angus on native pasture in the Santa Lucia range above the Salinas Valley, selling boxed beef out of Salinas.

Salinas

The Farm sits along the Salinas Valley, land growers call the Salad Bowl of the World for its lettuce, strawberry, and row-crop production. It is listed as an agritourism stop under a Salinas PO box address. Current hours, products, and ownership were not verifiable online at this time.

Salinas

Salinas

This certified organic market takes over the 300 block of Main Street at Gabilan Street every Saturday, 9am to 2pm, rain or shine. The Oldtown Salinas Foundation runs it as a showcase for Salinas Valley farms — arguably the most agriculturally dense stretch of California — alongside flower vendors, food stalls, live music, and a free kids' craft area. It's a bigger production than a typical neighborhood market.

Salinas

Everyone's Harvest, a Salinas nonprofit, runs the Alisal Certified Farmers' Market at 632 East Alisal Street on Tuesdays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., staying open year-round except for two weeks around the holidays. The market takes EBT, WIC, and Senior FMNP, and its Market Match program matches every EBT dollar spent on produce, up to $30 a visit. Free parking sits next to the market, and Salinas Transit routes 41 and 42 stop nearby.

Everyone's Harvest, a Monterey County nonprofit running six certified markets across the county, operates this Tuesday market at 632 E. Alisal Street, with summer hours running 11am to 4pm. It's one stop in a six-day rotation across Salinas, Seaside, Marina, Pacific Grove, and Natividad, all built to get Salinas Valley produce directly to shoppers — free parking is available next to the adjacent WIC nutrition center.

Salinas

Salinas

Monterey Bay Farms' roadside stand on San Andreas Road in Watsonville sells CCOF-certified organic Albion strawberries, hand-picked ahead of time rather than U-pick. Run by Rod and Gwen Koda, the stand opens Saturdays through the summer.

JSM Organic Farms grows organic strawberries, Brussels sprouts, green beans, sweet corn, and cut flowers on roughly 200 acres in Royal Oaks, California, near Watsonville. The farm has built its name on specialty strawberry varieties alongside its vegetable crops, selling through Bay Area farmers markets.

Watsonville

Watsonville

Esperanza Community Farms runs a subsidized CSA out of Watsonville, delivering biweekly boxes of pesticide-free vegetables and fruit to families in the Pajaro and Salinas Valleys. The nonprofit also operates the Esperanza Food Hub, linking small local growers with schools and community organizations, and has run a Farm to Cafeteria program bringing organic salads into area schools. Its focus stays on food security in a farmworker region that grows much of the country's produce.

Crystal Bay Farm is a small organic operation on Zils Road in Watsonville that runs u-pick days on Wednesdays and Sundays, noon to 5pm, alongside its fall pumpkin patch featuring rare and heirloom varieties. A self-serve farm stand and berry u-pick run alongside the pumpkins. Entry runs $2 per person; groups over ten should call ahead.

Watsonville

High Ground Organics is on Harkins Slough Road outside Watsonville, in the Pajaro Valley, one of the Central Coast's most concentrated organic vegetable and strawberry growing areas. No further confirmed details on current crops, CSA availability, or hours.

Watsonville

Ambling Ambystoma Farm works 20 organic acres near La Selva Beach, half a mile from Monterey Bay outside Watsonville. Rather than selling fresh berries, the farm turns its blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries into small-batch organic fruit syrup. The farm stand closes for winter and reopens in spring — call ahead or check the website before making the drive to Peaceful Valley Drive.

Watsonville

Clearview Orchards grows CCOF-certified organic apples on terraced hillsides overlooking the Watsonville valley, three miles from the ocean. Families come in fall for u-pick apples — Fuji, EverCrisp, and Mutsu among them — or shop the Apple Barn for organic fruit, fresh apple juice, apple turnovers, organic squash, pumpkins, dried lavender, and honey, weekends during the season.

Watsonville

Join us on the farm for one of our seasonal U-Picks and visit our organic produce Farm Stand. We have a wide selection of fruits, vegetables and preserves available for sale! We are open on Saturdays and Sundays only through the month of October.

Watsonville

Crystal Bay Farm became certified Organic in 1997.

Watsonville

Royal Oaks

Garden Variety Cheese is a small farmstead sheep dairy on 40-acre Monkeyflower Ranch in northern Monterey County, milking and making cheese since 2009. Its 80 ewes — each named after a garden flower — graze fresh pasture supplemented with alfalfa and organic grain, with no chemical wormers or antibiotics, producing rich sheep's milk cheeses and yogurt year-round through staggered breeding.

Watsonville

Salinas

A neighborhood farmers market on East Cliff Drive in the Live Oak area east of Santa Cruz, in a coastal county known for strawberries and Brussels sprouts grown around nearby Watsonville.

Aptos

The Aptos Farmers Market at Cabrillo College, run by Monterey Bay Certified Farmers Markets, is held every Saturday from 8 AM to noon at 6500 Soquel Drive in Aptos, celebrating over 50 years of farmers markets in the region with plentiful free parking and easy access.

Aptos

Lonely Mountain Farm is a California grower with no crop or location details on file yet.

Santa Cruz

The Live Oak Farmers' Market has anchored Sundays for the Live Oak, Pleasure Point, and Capitola communities since 2000, running 9 AM to 1 PM year-round at 15th and Eastcliff Drive. Tables stack high with organic produce, tree-ripened fruit, fresh bread, sustainable seafood, pasture-raised organic meats, and flowers, alongside celebrated brunch vendors, live music, EBT Market Match up to $15, and a monthly family day with the local school district.

Gizdich Ranch in Watsonville grows apples and berries across the Pajaro Valley, with u-pick apple picking each fall and berry picking earlier in the season. The pie shop bakes more than nine varieties, plus apple dumplings, puff pastries, and fresh-pressed apple juice, and the grounds stay open daily for picnicking. Located at 55 Peckham Road, it closes only for major holidays.

Aptos

Nearly 90 vendors set up every Saturday, 8 a.m. to noon, year-round in the Cabrillo College parking lot at 6500 Soquel Drive — a market that was voted America's favorite farmers market in California three years running and got a nod from Coastal Living. Beyond produce, stalls cover eggs, cheese, seafood, olive oil, mushrooms, and fermented foods, plus a knife and garden-tool sharpening stand.

Watsonville

Aptos

Working farm and horse ranch on Hames Road tracing back to Manuel Joaquin Silva and his wife Caroline Augusta Alm, who settled the land around 1883. Apple picking and horseback riding are the draw, along with events held on the property through the year.

Homeless Garden Project trains people experiencing homelessness through paid work on its organic farm near Natural Bridges State Park in Santa Cruz, growing vegetables, herbs, and flowers alongside a handmade crafts program. The nonprofit runs a seasonal CSA and a farm stand selling what the crew grows, plus a retail shop and online store built on the same job-training model.

Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz

The Westside market runs Saturdays year-round, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the Highway 1/Western Drive lot near Natural Bridges. Santa Cruz Community Farmers' Markets has run it as part of a five-market family for three decades, and the vendor mix leans hard organic — more than 30 farms and producers, plus pasture-raised meat, eggs, dairy, and locally caught seafood. A bluegrass band plays most Saturdays, as much a draw as the produce.

Santa Cruz Permaculture farms 26 regenerative organic acres on the Pacific coast 20 minutes north of Santa Cruz — land farmed organically for over 100 years and famous from 1995-2020 as Swanton Berry Farm's strawberry, olallieberry, and kiwi U-Pick. Over 80 crops span five acres of vegetables, flowers, and herbs, two acres of blackberries, and a third-acre of kiwis, sold through U-Pick, farm stand, farmers markets, CSA, and wholesale — all alongside permaculture courses with over 1,000 alumni and ocean views near Año Nuevo.