How about putting a sign up so people know where you are? Those roads are very dangerous to be 3 point turning and reversing on.
Wilhelm Y.
Classificação do local: 5 San Francisco, CA
The Sunrise Nursery is a commercial nursery specializing in the cultivation of cut flowers most of which are sold at farmers markets throughout California. Our small tour group stopped here for a private tour of the farm and the hot houses. This was also the setting for our catered lunch prepared by two chefs from the Pacific Coast Farmers Market Association. The family-run nursery specializes in hundreds of varieties of flowers mostly used for decoration. Steve Fernandes’ family operates the nursery, and he gave us several hours of his time to share his knowledge and show us around the maze of outdoor gardens and humid hot(really hot), hot houses. As our mini bus pulled up onto the driveway we were greeted by Nita Gizdich who co-founded the Gizdich Ranch located across the street from the Sunrise Nursery and Steve. Our path to the main flower gardens took us past some hydrangeas in several shades of pink. As Steve took our group towards a field of sunflowers I decided to lag behind in order to take some photos. As I passed one of the hot houses a single flower caught my attention, and I just had to wedge myself into an angular opening on the side of the structure to take a shot of this vividly orange-colored rose. I missed most of the talk about the different varieties of sunflowers, how seeds are developed into full plants and why some plants were so much taller than others. I did get the scoop however that the yellow sunflowers remaining in the garden were considered rejects because they did not meet specifications for cut flowers. Because of that fact Steve said it was okay for our group to cut down some of the sunflowers for personal use since they would be mulched and turned into compost soon. Once inside the hot houses I found myself doing the exact same thing again in lagging behind to take photos while missing all the facts about the different varieties of flowers grown. Because of that I ended up taking photos of a few flowers that I still have no clue of what they are. I signed up for this trip in order to learn more about organic produce so the fact that I was missing all these fun facts about flowers really didn’t bother me. As our tour ended we were greeted by Chef Greg and Chef Sim of the Pacific Coast Farmers Market Association. A vegetarian lunch had been cooked up for us using fresh organic produce from the farms we visited and were to visit. Our lunch consisted of vegetarian tacos and a summer salad. A refreshingly thick strawberry lemonade was made up for us using strawberry purée made from fruit harvested at the Rodriguez Brothers Ranch, lemon juice, water and a simple syrup. The«meat» for the tacos consisted of a variety of roasted potatoes and beets seasoned with herbs and garlic from the Nunez Farm where we were scheduled to tour after lunch. A fire-roasted chile salsa made to be served with the tacos used flavorful chiles not grown from the region. This was simply exceptional in taste. The summer salad consisted of sweet white corn, zucchini, yellow squash, purple bell peppers, cucumbers, red onions and heirloom tomatoes all from the Nunez Farm. I loved the salad so much I got up and went for seconds. Nita Gizdich surprised us with still warm slices of her seasonal olallieberry pie to cap off a truly delicious lunch. It wasn’t scheduled on our itinerary, but the pie was so good we asked our tour leader if we could do a side trip to the Gizdich Ranch in order to take some delicious pies home with us. Sarah N, our tour leader, agreed much to the delight of our group. As a thank you for spending time at their nursery the Sunrise Nursery gave everybody a freshly cut bouquet of flowers to take home with them. The link to my photos are here:
