sign up
to receive our email newsletter
Riverdog Farm Produces Bounty
By Nina Andres
Sweet, crisp, gorgeous red peppers…milky white, smooth, baby Tokyo turnips…tender, fresh and colorful, mix of summer squash—all this and more from Riverdog Farm goes into your FarmShares. After passing through Esparto, Hungry Hollow, Capay, and Brooks, one of my last stops collecting the weekly local fruits and vegetables destined for the FarmShares is Riverdog Farm in Guinda. Luckily for me, Riverdog Farm is packing produce into re-usable plastic totes (this reduces the use of cardboard boxes and we return the totes each week when we pick up a new delivery). After I arrive at the farm, usually at about 11:30 am, a pallet full of gorgeous produce is placed next to the truck. As I load it into the truck, I hear my stomach rumble and fantasize about consuming most of it for lunch. The totes stack and don’t have lids, so unlike loading a truck with cardboard boxes and their hidden contents, I can see each delectable item – ready for consumption, raw or cooked. I try to hold back, but who could resist a cherry tomato or two?
Riverdog Farm started in 1990 when Trini Campbell and Tim Mueller began a 2 acre garden in the Napa town of Rutherford. Trini remembers their first farmers’ market in St. Helena—a box of fava beans and a scale. Nineteen years later, Riverdog farm is selling a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts, eggs, and meat to the Bay Area and beyond, and growing it all organically on 300 acres in the Capay Valley. The actual distance from the Napa area to the Capay Valley is not far, but the climate is very different. Napa has cool, foggy mornings, not so many frosts, and milder summers. Capay Valley has more extreme temperatures—warmer in the summer and cooler in the winter.
Though the summer heat can make us wilt, many plants, such as tomatoes and melons, love high temperatures and thrive in this climate. Luckily for us, Riverdog Farm is thriving too!
Related posts: