DWELLEY FARM TOUR 2024
The Dwelley Family has been farming in Brentwood since 1921, now boasting over 1400 acres in production, more than half of which have been converted to organic. It’s a growing region dominated by sweet corn, cherries, and other stone fruits, mostly conventionally grown. Dwelley plans to convert additional acreage as time goes on.
We escaped the cool San Francisco fog and headed for Brentwood with a large cohort from Earl’s. We had representation from Inbound, Quality Control, Sales, Purchasing, Accounting, and Outbound – just about every department in the company! The sun was strong, but the late spring breeze created a perfect day in the low ‘80s. It will get hotter of course, but we got to experience a taste of what makes the region prime for growing. We met Patrick Johnston around 9:30 AM at their main cooler and packing facility for introductions.
A blurry photo of Earl, happy to be back at Dwelley Farm
When Patrick married into the family, he stepped into the 4th generation of the Dwelley farming line with a mission to grow against the grain. He helped spearhead the farm’s organic program and began a fruitful partnership with Earl’s. For him, shifting to organic production methods comes down to one essential factor: employee safety. He remarked how applications of pesticides create hazardous conditions for workers, who cannot enter fields for days after spraying. By contrast, organic fields are safe, and the produce is ready to eat: “there’s nothing like grabbing a piece of fruit and eating it right off the tree,” Patrick told us. And we were about to find that out ourselves.
Brentwood is known for sweet corn, evidenced by roadside signs boasting corn deals throughout the area. But it’s a notoriously difficult crop to grow organically due to the prevalence of the corn earworm caterpillar. Enter Patrick: determined to grow organic corn, he and his crew underwent extensive testing many years back. “You cannot imagine how many different colors of ribbons I had,” he explained to us. He was testing not only varieties but different organic ingredients that would stave off the earworm’s chow down. It took four years of trial and error before they found their own successful methods for growing incredible corn.
Though the exact ingredients are proprietary information, Patrick explained the kinds of inputs approved for organic production, all of which are naturally occurring. There are basic oils, essential oils, things like cinnamon, milk, and sugar. Some growers apply directly to ears of corn, others have mastered applications to foliage, still others add natural fertilizers to the irrigation systems. Organic farming means dedication to natural pest management: Patrick shared one example of an aphid explosion last year affecting a cherry orchard. The solution they found was to bring in tons of lady bugs, the natural aphid predator. He told us, “they were everywhere... you couldn’t leave the orchard without bringing ladybugs with you.” Unfortunately, they still lost many trees – such are the challenging outcomes when growing organically.
Patrick also explained their methods for protecting cherry trees from late spring weather events. Rain can be devastating to a cherry crop – the pressure from raindrops can bruise cherries, and any moisture settled in the stem bowl can cause rot or splits on the bottom of the fruit. Some growers fly helicopters low over orchards to act as giant fans. Dwelley mounts large fans on tractors to create a wind tunnel in the rows, effectively drying out the fruit. We truly appreciate those efforts here at Earl’s, and always strive to educate our customers about them!
Eventually one of our team members noticed their massive ice machine, and the conversation steered toward their operations and logistics. Imagine what it takes not only to grow, but to harvest and pack many pallets of produce each day in the blazing Brentwood heat. They have harvest crews of fifty-plus workers (all internal employees!) that set to work on each specific crop. Sweet corn harvests take place from 8pm to 5am, they pick green beans from 3am-11am, and cherries in the morning. Avoiding midday heat protects employees and ensures the quality of the produce. When harvesting corn, trailers equipped with flood lights follow the workers in the rows, and other staff members pack into boxes and palletize right there in the field. The pallets are then placed in the ice maker, which blows ice evenly into every box. Using well water, the machine makes about 160,000 pounds of ice per day! For the cherry harvest, trailers return to the cooler with cherries about every 15 minutes to ensure immediate cooling of the fruit. As you can imagine, such production needs loads of energy, almost all of which is provided by their 700 solar panels.
At last it was time to see the fields! We found the season’s first green bean field just a few miles down the field, abutting a freshly picked cherry orchard. It was a sea of green: 15 acres of plants, directly seeded back in February, expected to yield just one week’s worth of beans. The plants were only about a foot tall, and not expected to grow much taller before a major harvest. They all had flowers and miniscule beans-to-be. Amazingly, Patrick said they’d be ready to harvest in about 10 days (get excited).
As with any crop, growing beans is a tricky business with many factors at play. Finding the best variety is important: length, girth, how knuckled the beans become, the consistency of the gel when snapped, the flavor, and the color, from light yellow to almost dark blue. The wrong variety can drop their blooms if planted at the wrong time, or if heavy rains rot the seeds without sufficient drainage in the field. They cultivate the beds before seeding so the plants can get a head start on weeds, but excess weed growth means crews will have to come through with hand hoes to save the crop. They reserve a portion of each field to run trials (more ribbons), because it’s important to test the beans in the actual field where they’ll grow. We expect to be eating beans from those small plants in the coming weeks, but the subsequent plantings will grow at least waist high. Too high and they could topple over!
The corn was still too small to see, and so we headed to a nearby cherry orchard for our lunch and U-Pick experience. It’s hard to describe the feeling of being amongst those trees, sun peering through and a slight breeze rustling the leaves... cherries adorning branches like jewels, with such abundance they were falling into the rows... and just as Patrick said, when you eat a large, perfectly ripe cherry right off the tree... it’s something like paradise.
Most cherries are not self-pollinating, so after every two rows of Tiogas we found a row of Hazel cherries to ensure pollination. The Hazels were not quite ready to eat, and so we focused on the deep red Tiogas. We saw fruit as large as 8R or 9R in size, ripe for the picking. Dwelley crews pick everything by hand, and only when the fruit is perfectly ready for harvest. Crews on ladders strip pick the trees and later sort by size, though they will flag trees that aren’t quite ripe.
We were all mesmerized by the full set on the trees, scattering to taste the cherries, before we eventually arrived at the beautiful table the Dwelley family had set up for lunch. Over refreshing Arnold Palmers, we shared a meal together between the rows in celebration of the season. It wasn’t long before our team dispersed again into the orchard, filling bags with cherries. Everywhere you look, there’s a cherry that somehow seems even better than the last, branches with bigger fruit or a deeper hue. In the end, you can’t go wrong with a bag full of the season’s best. Dwelley will be open for U-Pick on weekends during cherry season – so head on over and see for yourself!
In a region dominated by conventional orchards and fields of corn, Dwelley has become of mainstay of practicing agriculture in a more sustainable way. Not only that, they’re dedicated to shipping only the best quality produce; when you see their name on the box, you know the contents will be excellent. It’s what we love to see here at Earl’s. We were so grateful to witness their operation, enjoy the actual fruits of their labor, share their story, and continue to build our relationship. With melons joining their assortment this year, we’re expecting a fantastic season with Dwelley!