Thursday, October 27, 2011

Peter Piper picked a pumpkin patch past the perpetually packed previous patches



Ah, pumpkin season! That time of year when driving to Half Moon Bay involves lengthy waits while cars slowly pull in and out of three of the most popular pumpkin patches in the Bay Area - Lemos Farm, 4-Cs, and Pastorino - all of which converge on the same spot along Highway 92, slowing traffic to a crawl at best, a stand-still at worst.

In short, pumpkin patch hell.

Now lean in, and I'll tell you a secret:

There's a pumpkin patch that has half the crowds and twice the parking of those other, better known patches. It also offers much more to do, including a 2-acre hay maze, haunted barn, train rides, petting zoo, pony rides, and picnic areas.  And you can reach it avoiding 92 altogether, taking an alternate scenic route through the redwood-dense back roads of Kings Mountain. Interested?

It's Arata Pumpkin Farm. The kids and I went today, finally exploring the pumpkin bliss that has been beckoning behind a huge guerilla (as seen from Highway 1) for years. We were not disappointed.

First, I should say that the the maze is serious. Like, get lost in for hours serious. I wouldn't want to go in there with a child younger than five, or with anyone who suffers from claustrophobia. We were fortunate. Just when I was beginning to despair (the kids were trusting that Mom knew what she was doing all along), I asked for help from three young boys who seemed to know what they were doing. They led us through, and through, and through, and through, and finally we emerged from the exit victorious.

"We try to make it fun," the one boy who seemed most at home there said. I'm guessing his family runs the place, but I'll never know for sure. Another family we had run into repeatedly in the maze later confessed they never made it out the exit. Not sure if they found their way back to the entry, or used one of the emergency exits. They had fun trying, though.

By contrast, the Haunted Barn, while fun, was not adult rated. Seven-year-old Esme cruised right through, undaunted by the spooky scenes set up in the dark. Emil got spooked, but he's easily spooked. The train ride was totally P rated (for preschool), being small, and running on a tiny track. That is one area where I felt a little nostalgic for Lemos Farm, and it's spooky train ride. But really, all the other things that Arata offers made up for that. The pony ride rocked, the petting zoo was fun enough, and we picked out some pumpkins to take home and carve (it is a pumpkin patch, after all!), but I will say this: in the end, it was all about the maze.



Arata Pumpkin Farm is located at 185 Verde Road in Half Moon Bay, and will be open this Friday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. (can you say night labyrinth?), and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. You can pay for activities a la carte, or do what we did and buy a pass that allows you to do everything ($20 for kids, $15 for adults, although they didn't charge me, since I had to accompany the children on everything anyway).

How to get there via back roads:

From the Peninsula, just follow Kings Mountain Road off of Highway 84 in Woodside. It winds up to Skyline, where it turns into Tunitas Creek Road, and winds on downs the mountain. Turn right at the Tunitas Creek cut off near the bottom of the hill, and it will take you right where you want to be on Verde Road. It's not a super fast drive, but I can almost promise there will be no traffic, and the drive is draw-dropping beautiful.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Digging East Bay Treasure, Annie's Annuals

Today I'm taking you Bay Area travelers over to the East Bay to dig for treasure. You may not find any precious metals on this excursion, but you can find some botanical gold.

Any serious gardener knows that planting season is not in the spring, when everything is all crazy and inspirational in full bloom. Oh no. To get that kind of spring splendor, you have to think ahead. In the Bay Area, fall is the time to plant. Just before the rains. Mother nature does all your watering, and the result is splendiferous.

In the six years that we've been dug into our hillside home, surrounded with redwoods but blessed with a nice little clearing that gets a fair bit of sun, we have planted a butterfly garden dominated by - but not exclusive to - native plants, as well as a vegetable garden, a privacy hedge, and various other little shady and sunny spots. Making my tours of all the local nurseries, I noticed that some of the most wild, funky, surprising, alluring plants (I know, a lot of adjectives, but trust me, these plants deserve them!) all seem to come from the same place. The name "Annie's Annuals" popped up over and over again.

Calceolaria integrifolia ‘Kentish Hero’
Then, while visiting the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show this spring, I discovered the Annie's Annuals booth. I swooned. Needless to say, I was soon planning my own pilgrimage to this Bay Area botanical institution.

One of the nice things about this nursery is that most of the plants come in 4" pots, which means they are young and and very reasonably priced. One of my favorite finds there is Calceolaria integrifolia ‘Kentish Hero’, also known as pocket book flowers. It  immediately became a centerpiece of my flower garden, with its prolific orange blossoms. 

I also found the long-sought silver bush lupine, a persnickety but gorgeous native wildflower, at Annie's after searching high and low everywhere else for a couple of years. Unfortunately, it didn't survive, but I will try it again. I knew before buying it that it was very tough to transplant, which may be why not many nurseries carry it.

Even if you don't have your own garden, a visit to Annie's can be a pleasure. There are so many incredible plants to ogle, you could consider it a varied and fascinating botanical garden, as well as a place with its own particular character. The actual nursery hides in a questionable Richmond neighborhood behind a barbed wire fence. But once inside, it's like you've entered another world. This may not be a firm rule, but I swear I didn't see a man working there. The place exudes this kind of girl power pride, and the flowers there seem flirtatious, inviting you to look at them, eager to show off their own personalities.


Some of the things that make Annie's plants stand out? Most are grown from seed, without greenhouses, so they are naturally hardened off. The particular micro climate there allows them to grow a wide variety of plants, from cool climate fans to sun lovers. They are also grown without growth regulating hormones, so they are more green (in the environmentally friendly sense). 


Why go now?  Annie's is currently having its fall sale, and everything is 20% off.


Annie's Annuals is a little difficult to find, but if you follow the directions on their website, you shouldn't have any problems. (You can also buy plants online, but then you don't get to see their wonderful nursery.) 

Happy planting!