Farms Near Santa Cruz, CA

Santa Cruz

UC Santa Cruz's Center for Agroecology manages this 25-acre certified-organic farm and 3-acre Chadwick Garden, internationally known training grounds for organic horticulture since master gardener Alan Chadwick founded them roughly 50 years ago. The grounds are open daily 8am-6pm with no admission charge, and organic produce sales run Tuesdays and Fridays, noon to 6pm, with blueberry u-pick in June and July.

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

Santa Cruz Bee Company practices regenerative beekeeping across the Monterey and San Francisco Bay Areas, offering full-service hive management, swarm relocation, site selection, and honey alongside the hives. Experienced apiarist Emily Bondor teaches beginner and advanced beekeeping classes, leads hive tours and honey tastings for schools and corporate events, and mentors new beekeepers one-on-one.

Felton

Roaring Camp runs two historic narrow-gauge railroads out of Felton in the Santa Cruz Mountains — steam locomotives dating to the 1890s, among the oldest still in regular passenger service in the country. The Redwood Forest Steam Train climbs through old-growth redwoods to the summit of Bear Mountain; the Beach Train runs the other direction, down to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. The grounds also recreate an 1880s logging camp.

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

Yellow Wall Farm is a nearly three-acre CCOF-certified organic family farm in a secluded valley along the San Lorenzo River in Santa Cruz, named for a wall of 8,000 sunflowers planted for a family wedding. Allen and Judy Rose Hasty tend 30-year-old heirloom apple trees plus peaches, Asian pears, persimmons, avocados, and citrus, grow summer vegetables and Slow Food Ark of Taste varieties, and sell to local restaurants, New Leaf Community Foods, and a Saturday farm stand from August through November.

Santa Cruz

At el Salchichero we provide delicious, top quality local meats that connect you to your community through healthy and mindful eating. We are passionate about the local foods we source from sustainable pasture raised animals. With our beautiful hand-cut meats, you’ll always know your food is from a carefully selected farm, with the highest and most humane standards. As your community butcher we artfully carve your meats and take great pride in bringing chef-driven, seasonally inspired recipes to

Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz Community Farmers' Markets has run for 30 years, operating a family of five markets: Downtown Santa Cruz on Wednesdays, Westside Saturdays, Live Oak/Eastside Sundays (all year-round, rain or shine), plus seasonal markets in Felton and Scotts Valley. The markets showcase regional organic produce, pasture-raised meats, eggs and dairy, sustainably harvested seafood, and artisan goods, with EBT Market Match and pop-up breakfast events.

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.

Scotts Valley

Scotts Valley's market runs Saturday mornings, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., from May through November at the Community Center on Kings Village Road. It's a Santa Cruz Mountains neighborhood market — smaller than the coastal markets down in Santa Cruz proper — built around local produce, meat, and baked goods, with the community center lot doubling as the town's Saturday gathering spot for the season.

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.

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.

Santa Cruz

We are a small family farm, providing creative souls with the farm and agriculture supplies they need to create their own self sustainable lives. We raise Chickens, Ducks, Rabbits, Kune Kune Hogs, Nigerian Dwarf Goats, and vegetable gardens. We offer small scale farm to table catering, rentable small event venues are available. Our mission is to build community, by sharing how our lifestyles create our happiness.

Santa Cruz

Third-generation family farm on Coast Road two miles south of Davenport, growing Brussels sprouts, leeks, artichokes, beets, peas, beans, and strawberries across roughly 300 acres. The farm stand runs May through October with fresh produce, flowers, and local goods like honey and soap, and a u-pick pumpkin patch with a corn maze opens late September through Halloween. School field trips available by request.

Davenport

Seaside Pumpkin Farms sits along Highway 1 near Davenport, California, on the Santa Cruz County coast, a stretch of bluff-top farmland known for artichokes, Brussels sprouts, and fall pumpkin patches with ocean views.

Soquel

Everett Family Farm is family owned and operated since 2001. We grow CCOF certified organic fruit, vegetables, and flowers on a beautiful 45 acre farm in Soquel, California in Santa Cruz County. We sell our produce at our farm stand and directly to local chefs and grocery stores. Farm stand located at 2111 Old San Jose Rd, Soquel.

Boulder Creek

Camp Joy Garden has run as a nonprofit demonstration farm and training center in the Santa Cruz Mountains since 1971, growing organic fruit, flowers, and vegetables on its Boulder Creek hillside. The farm distributes a CSA locally and runs apprenticeships, kids' classes, and adult workshops in small-scale ecological growing, plus a spring plant sale and holiday wreath sale. Volunteers are welcome on scheduled farm days.

Estrada Grass Fed Beef is a family-owned ranch and premiere grass-fed beef provider in Santa Cruz County, California, selling traditional, authentic beef directly to local consumers as whole, three-quarter, half, and quarter carcasses. Animals are processed by a USDA-certified butcher and cut and wrapped to each customer's specifications.

Davenport

An organic strawberry farm on Highway 1 near Davenport, one of the first in California to grow strawberries without synthetic pesticides and to unionize its field workers. The honor-system farm stand sells berries, jam, and merchandise, and the u-pick fields open seasonally for anyone willing to bend over a row and fill a basket.

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.

Los Gatos

Patchen California grows Christmas trees and pumpkins on Old Santa Cruz Highway in Los Gatos, on land the narrow gauge railroad once crossed on its 1880 run from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz. The farm sells fresh local produce alongside its seasonal crops. Call ahead for current hours before making the trip up into the hills.

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

Davenport

Swanton Pacific Ranch sits on Swanton Road north of Davenport, on the Santa Cruz County coast, a stretch of California better known for redwood forest and dairy ranching than for row-crop farmland.

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.

Los Gatos

Los Gatos Farmers' Market runs weekly in downtown Los Gatos at Town Park Plaza, on Main Street at N. Santa Cruz Avenue. Shoppers find seasonal Santa Clara Valley produce, cut flowers, and prepared foods within walking distance of the town's shops and restaurants, a fixture of the local weekend routine.

Los Gatos

Not a farm at all — this is an annual glass-art fundraiser held on the lawn of Los Gatos High School, where Bay Area glassblowers sell thousands of handmade glass pumpkins starting around $25 each. The one-weekend sale has raised more than $250,000 for the high school's programs since it began, drawing collectors as much as families out for a fall outing.

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.

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.

Pescadero

Jim Cochran and Mark Matze founded Swanton Berry Farm in 1983, and it became the first certified-organic strawberry grower in California. The farm still markets itself as organically grown by union labor, a distinction it's held for decades. U-pick strawberries and olallieberries run seasonally at the Coastways Ranch fields on Highway 1 in Pescadero, with a year-round farm stand up the coast in Davenport.

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.

Saratoga

Blarney Plaza, at the corner of Big Basin Way and Saratoga Avenue, hosts the second of Saratoga's two weekly markets — smaller and more village-scale than the West Valley College market, mixing certified growers with permitted non-farm vendors selling hummus, kettle corn, and fresh seafood. Parking is behind Village Burger Bar and along Big Basin Way.

Pajaro Pastures takes its name from the Pajaro Valley, straddling the Santa Cruz-Monterey county line. Specific livestock, products, and hours weren't confirmed for this listing.

Saratoga

West Valley College hosts Saratoga's Saturday market in Parking Lot 3, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., with an 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. shopping hour reserved for seniors and high-risk visitors before the crowds arrive. More than 50 local farmers and food producers set up weekly, with a mix that leans toward Asian vegetables, mushrooms, honey, farm eggs, and a rotisserie chicken stand regulars build their Saturday around.

Saratoga

Cooper-Garrod Estate Vineyards farms hillside grapes on Garrod Rd in Saratoga, in the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation above Silicon Valley. The property has grown fruit since the early 1900s and now produces estate wine from that same land.

Watsonville

Watsonville

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.

Live Earth Farm has grown organic produce in Watsonville, California for more than 30 years, running a CSA program that now serves over 800 households alongside a weekend farm stand and stalls at Santa Cruz-area farmers markets. The farm sits at 1275 Green Valley Road in the Pajaro Valley's coastal growing region.

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

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.

Campbell

San Jose

Pick of the Patch Pumpkins, run by third-generation ABC Tree Farms, has operated its Hillsdale Blvd location in San Jose for more than 70 years. The seasonal lot includes an inflatable park, giant slides, an inflatable maze, and a small petting zoo alongside the pumpkin selection, with Christmas trees sold at the same site later in the season.

Campbell Farmers Market runs every Sunday, 9 AM to 1 PM, at Campbell and Central Avenues downtown, a certified market approved by the Santa Clara County Agriculture Commissioner since 1997. Produce, prepared food, and craft vendors set up alongside live music.

San Jose

J&P Cosentino Family Farm is the last working orchard in San Jose — an urban farm in the old Valley of Heart's Delight, tended by five generations of the Cosentino family since 1945. Nearly 600 trees grow more than thirty varieties of peaches plus heirloom apricots, plums, prunes, nectarines, apples, figs, berries, persimmons, and grapes, all picked fully ripe and sold with farm classes, pop-ups, and events on-site.

Cupertino

The Creekside Farmers' Market, operated by the Pacific Coast Farmers' Market Association, runs Fridays from 8 AM to noon year-round at 10455 Miller Avenue in Cupertino, bringing California-grown produce and farm products direct from regional farmers.

Cupertino

The Cupertino Certified Farmers' Market, part of West Coast Farmers Markets, has operated Sundays from 9 AM to 1 PM in the De Anza College parking lot on Stevens Creek Boulevard. The market is temporarily closed — check West Coast Farmers Markets' other locations or their site for reopening updates.

Watsonville

San Jose

A seasonal Halloween pumpkin patch and haunted trail on Doyle Road in San Jose, one of several neighborhood pop-up patches that open each October in the South Bay. No independent website turned up in research, so confirm current hours before visiting.

Watsonville

Crystal Bay Farm became certified Organic in 1997.

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

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

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.

San Jose

Wendy Towner manages more than 600 hives across Santa Clara County under The Honey Ladies name, bottling raw, unfiltered honey while also running a round-the-clock bee removal service for homeowners with unwanted swarms in walls and chimneys. The honey sells through their Campbell storefront and online. It's less a farm stand than a working apiary business, built on relocating bees rather than just harvesting from them.

Cupertino

This certified market sets up in the Cupertino Oaks Shopping Center parking lot on Stevens Creek Boulevard, in the middle of Silicon Valley's office corridor.

Watsonville

La Honda

Skyline Chestnuts is a gather-your-own chestnut orchard on Skyline Boulevard above La Honda, open Wednesday through Sunday during the October–November harvest. Chestnuts run $10.50 a pound with a cash discount, and morning visitors need an advance parking reservation since the mountain lot is small. It's a pick-them-off-the-ground operation, not a pick-from-the-tree one.