As summer turns to fall, farms, ranches, and vineyards across the Bay Area are in peak production mode. That makes now the ideal time of year to see exactly how their gardens (and cows, and goats, and oyster beds) grow.
From Moss Landing to Sebastopol, these farm and ranch tours are pulling back the curtain on our food system, showing you exactly how they are working to responsibly produce the cheese, veggies, and proteins we eat every day.
Achadinha Cheese Co., Petaluma
Cheese aging at Achadinha Cheese Co.
(Courtesy of @nicosf)
At Achadinha, ranch tours ($45) reveal every step of the cheese making process, from cow (or goat) to rind. The experience gets guests into the milking parlor and loafing barns to meet the girls, and into the plant where their milk is processed into dairy gold. The tour ends with a little TLC time with the livestock and the chance to taste some of Acadinha’s cheeses, like the nutty and creamy broncha. If you want to try your hand at working the curds and whey, upgrade to a Cheesemaking Class ($120), which includes everything from the tour plus hands-on cheesemaking instruction and a deli sandwich. Tours take place several Saturdays a season at 11am.
// 750 Chileno Valley Rd. (Petaluma), acadinha.com
Far West Fungi, Moss Landing
Inside one of the spore innoculation rooms at Far West Fungi'
(Shoshi Parks)
If you’ve ever been to a Bay Area farmers’ market or high-end grocer, you’re already familiar with Far West Fungi. But if you love mushrooms as much as we do, there’s no better way to understand how these peculiar organisms grow than on a tour at their Moss Landing farm ($39). Offered only occasionally (the next tour is on Sunday, September 13th), A Far West farm tour takes you through growing rooms dedicated to everything from trumpets to oysters and lets you examine their cultivation process up close. You can also opt to join in on a full afternoon of fungus fun that includes mushroom jerky and tea tastings, a mushroom-focused lunch, and a talk on the medicinal power of mushrooms ($55, including tour).
// 248 Bluff Rd. (Moss Landing), farwestfungi.com
Hog Island Oyster Co., Marshall
(Courtesy of @hogislandoysterco)
Get a deeper look at the Bay Area’s favorite bivalve on a tour of Hog Island Oyster Co.’s working West Marin farm. The “classic” tour ($48, 1.25 hours) held at 9:30am, Friday to Sunday (and at 3:30pm on Saturdays), introduces you to Hog Island’s operations and the marine environment they cultivate, ending with a lesson in proper shucking in slurping. Go deeper with The Whole Hog Experience ($180), a three-hour tour on Tuesdays that, in addition to the standard tour, includes oyster tasting and a cheese board at The Boat Oyster Bar, as well as a set of your very own shucking tools to take home.
// 20215 Shoreline Hwy. (Marshall), hogislandoysters.com
Tomgirl Farms, Napa
(Courtesy of @tomgirlfarms)
Tours at Napa’s Tomgirl Farms are the closest most of us will ever get to being a bonafide farmer. The experience takes visitors through vegetable beds, fruit orchards, and flower patches to snack on summer tomatoes and learn about soil health, meeting the chickens that keep the farm humming and maybe even picking up a seed or starter for home along the way. There’s just one catch: You have to sign up for their newsletter in order to find out when the next “occasional small group tour” takes place. It will also give you the dirt on the produce currently available in their farm store and details about their flower CSA.
// 2063 N. 3rd Ave. (Napa), tomgirlfarms.com
Luther Burbank Experiment Farm, Sebastopol
(Courtesy of @redwood_coast_victorian)
Just because the Luther Burbank Experiment Farm isn’t the same kind of working operation as the others on this list doesn’t mean that its tours are any less interesting. Indeed, the opposite is true of this unique, 90-year-old, 3.5-acre agricultural laboratory that produces plant hybrids found nowhere else in the world. You can take a self-guided tour of the grounds and visit the nursery daily for free. Volunteer docents offer more detailed guided tours by appointment ($5). Time your visit for a Wednesday volunteer session and you can also help keep the farm in tip-top shape.
// 261 South Main St. (Sebastopol), wschs.org/farm
