A Castroville Field Experience

OMF Truck-Eat Your Heart Out

Spring is an exciting season for so many with warmer weather, spring break, spring time produce, Easter egg hunts and the perfect spring time recipes of course, like the Instant Pot Lemon and White Wine Artichokes.  It's also an exciting time of year for me because our Ocean Mist Farms operations are ramping up here in Castroville, CA!

OM_Trade_Growing-Regions-NEW-5

Check out our Growing Regions web page to learn more about where our crops grow at different times of the year.

After another successful winter growing season in our Coachella Valley region, our entire Castroville cooling facility has been powered up and our teams transitioned back to Castroville in time for the first harvests! 

IMG_4735

Our Castroville cooler powered back to 100%, in early March. Between November and March, the cooler is quiet, with only value-added product line production and cooling plus some load consolidation.

When they said the Spring transition was coming, they weren't kidding. Let's just say that in a week's time, my quiet walks around the cooler became speed-walks to move out of the way of a pallet or truck on the move. Hence why we wear safety vests! :)

In mid-March, our production team came back kicking it into high-gear. Forklifts started buzzing around our cooler loading pallets of your favorite Ocean Mist Farms fresh veggies. And refrigerated 18-wheeler after 18-wheeler arrived to be loaded  six days a week to carry our field fresh produce to your plate! 

20190412_085203

 Day in and day out, our production team is hard at work to get our quality veggies like cauliflower (above) harvested and carefully packed. The photo above was taken during the first week of harvest in mid-March.

20190412_104505

 The first of our Castroville spinach was harvested and bunched in mid-March. How do you enjoy your spinach?

IMG_4606

Our harvesting team carefully packs and stacks cases of artichokes, which will go straight to the cooler to meet our strict 4 hour cut-to-cool policy. This is one of many practices that makes Ocean Mist Farms artichokes the Gold Standard.

Oh, did we mention it's officially Castroville artichoke season?!

That's right! It's during this time of year when our year-round growing operations here in Castroville really ramp up artichoke volume. On our field experience tour with Dale Huss, VP of Artichoke Production, he discussed the different artichoke sizes and where they grow.

Our VP of Artichoke Production, Dale Huss, explains where the different artichoke sizes grow on the crop. 

Ocean Mist Farms- Gold Standard Artichokes 2019

Be on the lookout for our Gold Standard artichokes in the produce aisle at these fine retailers
Why is the Ocean Mist Farms artichoke the industry Gold Standard artichoke? Just ask Dale!

Being the largest and only year-round grower of fresh artichokes in North America, it's safe to say our Ocean Mist Farms artichokes are the industry Gold Standard!

Thank you for joining this virtual field tour in the Artichoke Center of the World!

Share:
Leave us a comment
Julie Criswell
Julie has been connected to Ocean Mist Farms for half of her life! When she was 9, she participated in the Artichoke Festival’s Agro-art competition for the first time, and every year until she went to college in Chicago. Now, two years after her summer internship with us, she’s officially aboard our marketing team full-time. Enjoy her perspective of life in the produce lane!
From the Heart Logo
Subscribe Here:

Topics
Contributors