ucsc farm tour

Free Guided Tour of the UCSC Farm

Sun Jul 07 2024 at 02:00 pm to 03:30 pm

The Farm, UCSC | Santa Cruz, CA

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The Farm, UCSC

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Santa Cruz Life

UCSC Farm & Garden: How to Enjoy the Farm Year Round

By Laura Turner-Essel

In late July 2017, 500 visitors descended upon the 30 acres of lush, hilly grasslands nestled near the base of the UC Santa Cruz campus.

They weren’t students, although you couldn’t tell by the class-filled days and late night parties that ensued over those three days.

They were former staff, students, and apprentices of the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS) , known more affectionately by the Santa Cruz community as the UCSC Farm & Garden, arriving to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the farm’s founding by master gardener Alan Chadwick.

What began in 1967 as a scraggly lot of devoted students assisting Chadwick to build a garden on one of the rockiest hillsides on campus eventually blossomed into a fully functioning organic farm which not only produces over 700 varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers but also has become a premier training program for aspiring organic farmers from around the world.

Even if you didn’t get to join in that weekend of workshops, tours, and photo exhibitions, there are plenty of ways for you to take part in the magical wonderland that is the UCSC Farm & Garden.

How You Can Enjoy the Farm

The farm is open to public every day and hosts tours, public workshops, and community events throughout the year.

Each Tuesday and Friday between June and October, fresh produce from the farm is sold at the Market Cart on the corner of Bay and High Streets (near the main entrance to campus.)

Community members can also sign up to receive a weekly share of the farm’s best produce by participating in the farm’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.

Want to enjoy all that the UCSC Farm & Garden has to offer? Here are ways all community members can get involved:

• Farm Tours – Free, docent-led tours of the UCSC Farm are offered the first Sunday of the month from April through November, from 2 pm to 3:30 pm.
• Market Cart – Stock up on fresh produce at the Farm’s Market Cart on Tuesdays and Fridays from 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm, June through late October.
• Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Program – Not only do shareholders receive a box of fresh organic produce each week, they are also welcome to harvest from the CSA herb and flower garden at the UCSC Farm.
• Annual Harvest Festival – The Farm’s biggest event of the year! Read more about the Harvest Festival below.

The UCSC Farm & Garden is open to the public daily, 8am-6pm, year-round. Metered parking can be found near the front and back gate entrances to the farm. Directions are provided here . It is requested that public visitors not harvest food, flowers, or herbs from the fields or gardens. Feel free to take seedlings from the designated “Free Table” next to the greenhouses.

Harvest Festival

Each fall, the farm welcomes one and all for its biggest event of the year, the Harvest Festival .

At this family-friendly affair, staff and students of the farm pull out all the stops with tractor rides, fresh cider-making with an old-fashioned apple press, live music, food demonstrations, face painting, wall climbing, and hourly workshops on everything from brewing kombucha to growing hot peppers.

Piles of freshly harvested organic pumpkins are available for sale. And, of course, there is plenty to eat.

General admission to the festival is $5, with free admission for UCSC students and children under age 12.

Life on the Farm

On an average summer day, a stroll through the gates of the UCSC Farm & Garden will land you in a fresh-aired sanctuary rich in flourishing greenery, vibrantly colored flowers, buzzing pollinators, and dusty red footpaths leading to the various fields and gardens on the 30-acre site.

You’d likely see the farm apprentices, farmers-in-training who live and work on the farm for six months each year, busily planting and weeding rows of crops.

You might hear the squeals and laughter of campers at Lifelab , the PK-12th grade garden-based education program located on the farm, as they jump giddily around bales of straw. Or, you may encounter one of the dozens of teenage summer workers irrigating plants and making bouquets at FoodWhat?! , a food justice organization with offices and gardens on the farm.

Passing by the rustic, weathered wooden sheds and barns of the farm might cause you to forget that you’re on a college campus, until you stumble upon a group of apprentices and interns engrossed in a botany class or tree-pruning demonstration. Then you’ll remember that this place is not only a meditative refuge from the busy-ness of modern life or a cool place to let the kids run around, but is also an outdoor classroom and research lab teeming with lessons in how we all can stay connected to land, nature, and food.

No wonder hundreds of people wanted to come and celebrate 50 years of this place as a nourishing community resource. Thousands more have walked this land, and the 3 original acres of the Chadwick Garden nestled in the hills of upper campus, and have in some way or another found themselves cultivated within its rich and fertile soil.

As staff members of the Farm & Garden often say, ‘We don’t just grow plants here. We also grow people.’

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Laura Turner-Essel

Laura is a psychologist and writer that lives in Santa Cruz with her husband and four children. She loves building community and being in nature.

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Home / 2014 / March / Farm tours

Free, guided tours of UCSC Farm begin monthly starting Sunday, April 6

March 25, 2014

By Martha Brown

Free, guided tours of one of Santa Cruz’s most beautiful locations – the 30-acre organic farm at UC Santa Cruz – are offered from 2 to 3:30 pm on the first Sunday of the month beginning April 6. Tours will meet at the Louise Cain Gatehouse on the UCSC Farm. Founded in 1971, the UCSC Farm offers thriving examples of organic farming and gardening practices and hosts education programs and research to improve organic farming techniques. Perched on a meadow near the campus entrance, the farm also offers spectacular views of the Monterey Bay. Visitors can enjoy touring the organically managed greenhouses, hand-worked garden beds, orchards, row crop fields, and children’s garden, while learning about the history of the site and the basic concepts of organic farming and gardening, including water conservation practices. The UCSC Farm is located one quarter mile up the gravel road above the Blacksmith Shop on the UC Santa Cruz campus. Free public parking is available in the parking lot at the corner of Coolidge Drive and Carriage House Road, near the main entrance to the UCSC campus. For directions, see http://casfs.ucsc.edu/about/directions.html . The Louise Cain Gatehouse is located just inside the Farm’s entrance. Please note that the UCSC Farm and the 3-acre Alan Chadwick Garden (located on upper campus below Merrill College) are open daily to the public from 8 a.m. – 6 p..m. Group tours can be scheduled outside of the monthly free tour times by contacting the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems. For more information or to schedule a guided group tour, call (831) 459-3240, email [email protected] , or see http://casfs.ucsc.edu . Tours are cosponsored by the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems and the Friends of the UCSC Farm & Garden.

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Last modified: March 25, 2014 128.114.113.82

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Sign up for an in-person walking tour of our beautiful campus, or take a Self-Guided Tour! See our Santa Cruz Area page for more information about our area. For a complete visitor guide, including information on accommodations, dining, activities, and more, see the Visit Santa Cruz County homepage. For families who can’t travel to campus, we continue to offer many virtual options to experience our extraordinary campus environment (see below).

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Join us for a student-led, small-group tour of campus! Our S.L.U.G.s (Student Life and University Guides) are excited to take you and your family on a walking tour of campus. Use the links below to see your tour options.

General Walking Tour

Register here for a tour led by one of our Student Life & University Guides (S.L.U.G.s). The tour will take approximately 90 minutes and includes stairs, and some uphill and downhill walking. Appropriate walking shoes for our hills and forest floors and dressing in layers are highly recommended in our variable coastal climate.

Please note that from April 1 through 19, admitted students and their families will be prioritized for tours. If you are unable to make a reservation during that time, please consider a virtual tour or a self-guided tour . Parking is likely to be highly impacted during the spring season. For a smoother arrival, plan to arrive early, and download the ParkMobile app in advance.

See our frequently asked questions for more information.

Self Guided Tour

VisiTOUR is an app that you can download to your phone for either an in-person or virtual UC Santa Cruz experience! Take a general walking tour, or select your interests to have a route customized just for you! Either way, you can check out videos and photos of different spots on campus along the way. Just text UCSC to 58052, or use the link below.

In-person group tours are offered to high schools, community colleges, and other educational partners. Please contact your admission representative or the tours office for more information.

If your group would like to visit before we can accommodate you or you have a group larger than 75, please utilize our VisiTOUR  tour  for your visit.

S.L.U.G. Video Series and 6-minute Tour

For your convenience, we have a playlist of short topic-focused YouTube videos featuring our Student Life and University Guides (S.L.U.G.s) and lots of footage showing campus life. Tune in at your leisure! Just want to get a quick overview of our campus? Try our 6-minute video tour!

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Take a campus tour from the comfort of your own computer! Our interactive program is narrated by our own student tour guides, is available in five languages, and includes 360-degree photos.

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Seventh Annual Farm to Fork Benefit Dinner

UC Santa Cruz Farm & Garden Benefit Dinner

First 50 Celebration, UCSC Farm & Garden

The First Fifty Celebration’s three days of events combine an engaging lineup of speakers, workshops, tours, and music, with great local food and time for mingling with old-timers and newcomers to the sustainable agriculture community

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UCSC: Farmstand

August 22 @ 12:30 pm - 6:00 pm pdt.

The Center for Agroecology Farmstand is open to all and features organic vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers grown at the UCSC Farm and Chadwick Garden.

Find the Farmstand at the Cowell Ranch Hay Barn near the base of campus every Thursday from 12:30-6pm, beginning June 20 and continuing through September 26, 2024.

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Volunteer Opportunities

Interested in volunteering with the Center for Agroecology? Please fill out our volunteer interest form and we will contact you with upcoming volunteer opportunities . For additional ways to get involved,  sign up for our monthly e-newsletter.

Center for Agroecology volunteer opportunities include:

• One-time volunteer opportunities : Don’t have the time to commit to a long project? Join us for a one-time volunteer opportunity like supporting our annual plant sale and the Harvest Festival or garden work days. Tasks can include helping with event check-in, weeding, garden/field work, etc. After you fill out our interest form, we'll email you as opportunities arise.
• Tour Guide Program : Want to make a deeper impact and spend time outdoors? Join our volunteer Tour Guide Program. After several training sessions, you will help lead group tours of the UCSC Farm. Tour groups are members of the general public, groups from other colleges and schools, etc.
• Workshop volunteers : Support educational opportunities for the community and learn something, too! Duties include arriving early for workshops, helping set up the space, checking in participants, and helping with clean up. Attend workshops for free as a perk! 
• Site-based opportunities : C ommit to weekly or biweekly volunteer shifts in one of our sites. Tasks including pruning, weeding, or other garden- or field-based activities. Based on site need, scheduling availability, and volunteer commitment.

Sign up to volunteer .

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Last modified: March 4, 2024 128.114.113.82