‘Tis the Season to Do Business : Time Is Money for Growers of Pumpkins, Christmas Trees and Other Specialty Crops
After more than two decades of selling pumpkins, Linda Ayers has no trouble summing up her business:
“On Nov. 1,” she said, “nobody wants a pumpkin.”
Like other Ventura County growers specializing in holiday crops, the owner of Faulkner Farm in Santa Paula realizes the limitations of her eight acres of soon-to-be Jack-o’-Lantern and pie filling has-beens.
Almost all of Ayers’ sales are made within a six-week period between mid-September and Halloween.
Similar condensed schedules affect the county’s Christmas tree growers (Ayers has 12 acres of trees too), poinsettia growers, and to a certain extent, the county’s lone turkey farmer.
While families gear up for a festive, jolly time of it the next few months, specialty growers large and small are shifting into high gear, hoping their marketing is effective, their growing techniques flawless and the intangibles --weather, bugs, even road construction--are working in their favor.
Some of these growers say there is considerable risk in dealing with specialty products sold just once a year. So they better the odds by growing and selling staple crops--such as lemons, oranges and tomatoes--the rest of the year.
Others say the risk is no greater than with year-round items, and in fact, the market is quite steady. As Oxnard grower Phil McGrath put it: “Halloween will be here every year.”
No matter what they think of the risk, these specialty crop growers go out of their way to promote their products--whether by offering discount coupons, harvest festivals, sleigh rides, hot cider with a Christmas tree, or simply the “Pick-Your-Own” experience.
And it generally pays off. According to 1992 figures from the Ventura County agricultural commissioner’s office, cut Christmas trees were valued at just over $1 million, poinsettias at $920,000, and pumpkins $266,633.
‘Tis the season to do business.
PUMPKINS
This time each year Ayers and the rest of the folks at Faulkner Farm join pumpkin growers countywide, listening to weather reports and tracking clouds.
A lengthy rainstorm can put a serious crimp in plans, and leave a spacious hole in the pocketbook. Just try getting hordes of customers to tromp around a muddy pumpkin patch.
“Weather is a big risk anytime you do outdoor marketing,” said Ayers, who operates Faulkner Farm’s 22-year-old pumpkin operation. “And you can just about count on it raining once in October and more than that in December. You just take your chances and do your best.”
They might have a roll-with-the-punches philosophy at Faulkner Farm, but they also don’t rely solely on pumpkin sales (or pumpkin and Christmas tree sales combined), for their income. They put on summertime outdoor garden weddings--also a business that relies on the weather--and grow lemons on the side.
“When we started the pumpkins, we had just planted lemons on the ranch,” said Ayers. “A crop (of lemons) doesn’t come in for six to 10 years so we thought in between the rows we would get a cash crop in.” Enter pumpkins.
Oxnard’s McGrath is also aware of the need to cultivate a variety of crops. The pumpkins he sells at Central Market represent a small, albeit, valuable, percentage of his business.
McGrath has 10 acres of pumpkins, at an average of 15 tons per acre, to sell before Thanksgiving. He said there is a constant demand year after year for his product, helping to make October his most profitable month.
“I grow very few things that aren’t for consumption,” he said. “But the things that people don’t eat are the biggest money producers.”
Change, however, may be in the offing.
“As the economy gets harder and harder and harder, pumpkin sales are going to go down,” he said. “It’s a luxury item, it’s not like broccoli and potatoes.”
McGrath’s 1993 pumpkin yields are down slightly as a result of aphid problems and mildew caused by a cool, overcast summer. But he isn’t biting his nails and pacing the patch.
“I just don’t have too many eggs in one basket,” he said. “I can live through a bad year on yields and get by with the other products.”
McGrath counts on passersby spotting his stand as they drive along the Ventura Freeway. He counts on the tourists. He counts on restaurants and schools purchasing his pumpkins for decoration.
“I put something up and even if it’s out of season, people start thinking,” he said. “People start asking for pumpkins in September.” As a marketing tool, McGrath distributes flyers to local schools, promoting hayrides, a petting zoo, and antique farm equipment. It’s all part of the pumpkin picking experience.
CHRISTMAS TREES
Ojai’s DeWayne Boccali has been farming as long as he can remember. But it wasn’t until he started doing business with a beekeeper that he considered the Christmas tree business.
“I have this guy from Riverside who keeps bees on my ranch. One time, instead of giving me rent, he sent me a thousand seedlings, UPS,” Boccali said. “I planted them in the spring of 1980.”
Now his Monterey Pines cover eight acres. He also owns six acres of pumpkins, 60 acres of oranges, five acres of tomatoes. And a restaurant.
“If farming were so wonderful, I wouldn’t have the other business,” he said. “I always laugh when I say I run the restaurant to support my farming.”
Boccali said the Christmas tree business has been “really bad” over the past few years for Monterey Pine growers like himself. Retail competition from Douglas Fir people in the Pacific Northwest have created a highly competitive market.
But, he said, patience in this case is definitely a virtue.
“The trees are a long-term proposition,” Boccali said. “I’m planting this year for 1996-97. If I want to stay in business, I can’t say, ‘It’s bad, I quit.’ I have to be thinking about what I’ll be doing four years from now.”
Boccali said success with Christmas trees--as well as with pumpkins--rests heavily on his marketing skills. With oranges and tomatoes and the like, he’s at the mercy of the overall market. But not with his holiday crops.
“If it sells, I’m a hero,” he said. “If it doesn’t, I’m stupid.”
For Boccali and other county Christmas tree growers, particularly the smaller ones, the marketing bywords are “Pick-Your-Own” and “Holiday Experience.”
“We’re on a ranch, not in a parking lot somewhere. You come to the country and see the leaves start turning,” said Boccali. “We’re not just selling a product.”
J. J. and Jim Birkenshaw of Moorpark couldn’t agree more.
The owners of the 60-acre Holiday Forest farm along California 118--who bill themselves as the oldest Christmas tree sellers in the county, with 28 years--pride themselves on providing a country holiday feel.
“We not only offer nice, fresh trees, but the experience of coming out and letting the kids run through the tree farm,” said Jim Birkenshaw. “We have a unique situation, where people come out and are spiritually elevated, very happy. They come out to have a good time.”
Birkenshaw comes from a long line of Ventura County farmers who have grown lima beans, avocados and other orchard crops. He said selling Christmas pines from his roadside field, between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, is as risky as it gets.
“We’re vulnerable with the weather. Caltrans construction could hit on the wrong week for me. And then it’s over, and you don’t have marketing for the rest of the year,” he said.
“I used to lie awake at night concerned about the bank.”
Now that he’s better established, Birkenshaw sleeps soundly.
POINSETTIAS
Thanks to what he referred to as three good, active salesmen, Dudley Davis of DoRights Plant Growers in Oxnard sold out his entire stock of poinsettias for the 1993 holiday season way back in July. That was about five months after the first “mother plants” were produced.
But that doesn’t mean he can coast on home to a Merry Christmas.
Davis won’t deliver his flowers to his wholesale customers--garden centers, landscape contractors, hotels--until Nov. 15. Success and his reputation depend on timing from here on out.
“If the crop isn’t ready, or it’s too early, you’ve got problems,” said Davis, of his 120,000 poinsettias. “We grow in a greenhouse. You have to be very careful about temperatures for timing.”
Davis said he plays around with the greenhouse lighting to keep his poinsettias on schedule. The Thanksgiving crop and Christmas crops are grown simultaneously but must be ready for market a month apart. More lighting, which delays the redness, is needed for the later batch.
Like other specialty crop growers, Davis began producing poinsettias because it looked like a good product to supplement year-round sales of petunias, marigolds, pansies and other plants.
“Bedding plants are not profitable during the winter,” he said. “During that time poinsettias are a viable product to produce.”
Like DoRights, which is a small grower, Oxnard-based Milgro Nursery Inc., one of the largest potted plant growers in the country, sells its poinsettias before it grows them, so risk is limited.
“We will be ordering our poinsettia stock plants for 1994 in December of 1993. Most will be presold (to supermarkets and other mass outlets) right after the 1993 poinsettia season,” said company President Barry K. Miller. “Our company grows very few on speculation.”
Miller wouldn’t say how many poinsettias Milgro sells annually, but he does say they are doing very well with the crop, which also promotes other Milgro products.
“It’s easier to sell flowers during the holidays when demand is high,” said Miller. “If a person wants to purchase poinsettias from Milgro, we generally require they purchase flowers on a weekly basis at other times of the year.”
WHERE TO FIND THEM
Here is a guide to some of the local pumpkin patches and Christmas tree farms:
PUMPKINS
BOCCALI RANCH, 11675 Santa Paula/Ojai Road (Highway 150), Ojai. Through Oct. 31, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Call 647-3300.
CENTRAL MARKET, near Central Avenue exit off the Ventura Freeway, Oxnard. Through Thanksgiving, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Call 983-1211.
FAULKNER FARM, Briggs Road between California 126 and Telegraph Road, Santa Paula. Through Oct. 31, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Call 525-9293.
MCGRATH STREET PUMPKIN PATCH, off Valentine Road, Ventura. Through Halloween, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Call 647-0365, 658-9972, or 656-2193.
SANTA PAULA CHRISTMAS TREE FARM, 18540 E. Telegraph Road, Santa Paula. Through Oct. 31, 9 a.m. to dark. Call 525-8268.
TIERRA REJADA RANCH, 3370 N. Moorpark Road. Through Halloween, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Call 529-3690.
CHRISTMAS TREES
BOCCALI RANCH, 11675 Santa Paula/Ojai Road (Highway 150), Ojai. Nov. 26 to Christmas Eve, 10 a.m. to dark. Call 647-3300.
CHRISTMAS RANCH TREE FARM (two locations), 3800 Cochran St., Simi Valley. Dec. 1 through Christmas Eve, weekends 9 a.m. until dusk. 1500 block of Pederson Road, Thousand Oaks. Dec. 1 through Christmas Eve., weekdays 2 to 7 p.m., weekends 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Call 527-6412.
FAULKNER FARM CHRISTMAS FOREST, Briggs Road between California 126 and Telegraph Road, Santa Paula. Nov. 26 to Dec. 23, 10 a.m. to dark. Call 525-9293.
HAGLE TREE FARM, 3442 Somis Road, Somis. Nov. 26 through Christmas Eve, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Call 987-3887.
HARTMANN’S TREE FARM, 207 Boardman Road, Ojai. From the weekend after Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve, noon to 5 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekends. Call 646-3587.
HOLIDAY FOREST RANCH, at the intersection of Highway 118 and Hitch Boulevard in Moorpark. From the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call 523-7313.
HOLIDAY PINES, on Santa Rosa Road across from Barbara Drive, Camarillo. Nov. 26 through Christmas Eve, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday through Sunday. Call 491-2610 or 484-2231.
LAKE CASITAS PINE FOREST, 1757 Baldwin Road (Highway 150), Ojai. Nov. 27 through Dec. 21, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call (818) 346-2264.
SANTA PAULA CHRISTMAS TREE FARM, 18540 E. Telegraph Road, Santa Paula. Nov. 26 to Dec. 24, 9 a.m. to dark. Call 525-8268.
TIERRA REJADA RANCH, 3370 N. Moorpark Road, Moorpark. Dec. 1 through 23, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call 529-3690.
VICTORIA CHRISTMAS TREE FARM, Victoria Avenue at 5th Street, Oxnard. Nov. 26 through Dec. 2, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Dec. 3 through Christmas Eve, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Call 487-7801.
