Stone Ridge Farm
A vegetable garden at Approximately 1500 feet above the Pacific Ocean. Most days in this garden you are in the blazing heat looking down at a carpet of fog over the ocean below you. The sound of harbor seals drifting up the canyon from the cliffs below.
HABITAT TYPE
Coastal Chaparral • Rural
DESIGN CONSTRAINTS
High winds • Rocky soil • Steep Slopes • Coastal influence (fog, temperature) • Intense Sun Exposure • Deer/Rabbit Grazing
DESIGN FEATURES
Vegetable Garden • Pergola / Trellis • Hardscape (walls, pathways, stairs, terraces)
SUSTAINABLE DESIGN FEATURES
Pollinator Garden • Grey Water • Organic/Permaculture Practices • Increased Biodiversity • Soil Ecological Health • Adaptive Management
A garden that puts crops to the test.
A garden that puts vegetables to the test with extreme heat in the summer, then hail wind and even light snow in the winter make this a dramatic location to carve out a vegetable farm.
This farm consists of a wood deck, twelve large raised planting beds, and in-ground planting terraces. Flat areas continue to be established through the use of hugelkultur berms made of tree trimmings from the oaks in the garden and the compostable materials from spent crops.
Despite it all, as the years of cultivation progress the soil begins to become richer and the plants begin to thrive more and more as this ridge top farm takes shape.
Featured Plants
Summer Vegetables (High heat over 80F almost daily)
Tomato • Pepper • Beans • Squash • Tomatillo • Greens • Flowers
Vegetable Winter - (Frost tolerant high elevation)
Cover Crops • Greens • Brassicas • Alliums
Fruit Trees:
Apricot • Pluot • Plum • Blueberry • Raspberry • Strawberry • Guava
