Challenges heat up Conversely, the weather can also be Jack’s biggest challenge. “When we start planting in late August, there can be extreme heat, which really stresses the plants. Then, next thing you know, they’ll be calling for a hurricane coming up the Gulf of Mexico. Weather for us changes so dramatically from when we start planting in August to our last planting in December. Every day, every planting seems a little different than the one the day before and the day after.”
Top priority “The most important thing to growing vegetables is having really good dirt. If you have mediocre dirt, I don’t care how good a farmer you are—you’re going to fight it all season,” Jack says. “Some areas in our valley are very heavy clay, some are extremely sandy, some are sand on top of clay. … After 108 years of working with it, we finally got to where we have firmer dirt (which holds the nutrients and the roots) on top of the lighter dirt,” ensuring good drainage.
Harvest time During harvest, a crew on the ground cuts the lettuce, broccoli or cauliflower and places it on a conveyer belt on a large harvest machine following them. Then, employees on top of the machines pack it into boxes and place the filled boxes onto another conveyor belt that takes the boxes to a trailer next to the harvest machine. Once full, the trailer hauls the boxes to a refrigerated room, and another trailer pulls in to replace it in the fields, keeping the process flowing.
Off to the table Jack estimates 70% of his produce heads to grocery companies and 30% to food services like restaurants, schools or prisons. “I would say 95% of it stays here in the United States and Canada, and a small percentage goes to Japan and Europe.” When Jack wraps up his season, the Salinas Valley takes over. “So, pretty much, the day that we’re done, they start and the day they’re done, we start. … It’s all dialed in to where we can have these vegetables coming every day of the year.”
Linda DuBois ldubois@californiabountiful.com
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