Our little farm started out when we bought one acre in Catalina, next to the Rulaja Arabian horse ranch, in 1975.  I was looking around at the trees and the mountains, and Wayne was picking up the soil and checking out its texture and fertility.   Before long we had a 50 by 100 foot vegetable garden, and a freezer full of corn and cauliflower.  Several years down the road the horse ranch sold some of its property, and we had 5 more acres.  This was the start of the pistachio orchard.

We put in the well in 1979, and started hundreds of pistachio seedlings, 300 of which were planted... a whole orchard of two inch trees!  For that story, see The Pistachio Orchard below.  In time the horse ranch sold some more land, and we had 5 more acres.  We would grow corn, melons, acorn squash, even lettuce and green onions in large quantities just trying to see what would sell and how we could sell it.  What we couldn't sell went to the Food Bank.  Meanwhile we'd made use of the tree bowls around the young pistachios and planted asparagus.

We sold seedless watermelons on the corner of Golder Ranch and Oracle before anyone ever saw them in the stores, and even before Bashas moved to Tucson, nevermind to that corner.  We went to the Tanque Verde Swap Meet when it was still on Tanque Verde and Grant Rd. and sold produce.  We sold to a "middle woman" who sold our asparagus at the St. Phillips Plaza farmer's market.  We sold at the farmer's market downtown in the parking lot of the B&B.

Finally we started selling right from the house, "Fresh Local" corn and asparagus, with a series of cardboard box signs leading the way.  That felt as temporary as it sounds, so we laid low for a few years and figured out how to really do this right.  Of course that took money, but in time Wayne and Jesse put up a shed, and we had a shed painting party.  The dogs and rabbits told us we had to fence in the annual crops, so we did.

In the summer of 2002 we opened "Our Garden" as a pick your own.  It didn't take long to see we'd be more efficient by selling out of the garden shed, thus protecting vegetable crops and guests from injuring each other.  We grew more tomatoes to try to keep up with the demands of the birds, and eventually enclosed those tomatoes with netting to try to keep up with the demands of the people.  We also generally net the grapes and peaches, but sometimes open them up to pick your own when we just can't keep up with the birds. 

When Jesse took over from his dad he continued to expand the planting, and decided to stay open year round.  He started growing greens in the winter and covering with frost cloth, something we just did not have time for originally.  Now he's noticing the need for more time too, and is balancing that with a little winter time off and more volunteers.  He also initiated harvesting enough of the pistachio crop to be able to offer them for sale.  And now coming up soon we'll have a Face Book page.  Who knew!