After reading Linda’s post last week about Orchard Visits in Minnesota, I was reminded about a day trip that we enjoy each fall. Visiting Watsonville, and especially Gizdich Ranch, is a family tradition we started several years ago.
Watsonville is about 15 minutes south of Santa Cruz, on Highway 1, on the coast of California. A farming town, Watsonville is known for their apples, strawberries and cut flowers, and has earned the moniker “Strawberry Capital of the World”. Gizdich Ranch has been around since I was a child, and offers Pik-Yor-Sef as well as boxed, ready-to-go fruit. We visit once in June, during Ollalieberry season, and again in October, to bring home apples for sauce, butter and pies.
Our kids enjoy running around behind the barn, playing on top of the old red tractor, and jumping in and out of the hay bales. There is a small pumpkin patch behind the main building, with sizes to suit every need (excellent photo-op too!). After a time, we will venture inside the Pie Shop and emerge sometime later with our pie slices to eat on the picnic tables.
In the fall, the pies offered include pumpkin, several varieties of apple, and berry. Slices are served plain or ala mode, and you can also purchase whole pies to go. We love the by-the-slice plan, as the four of us can rarely agree on only one kind of pie!
4 Responses
[...] I wrote about for Uptake this week, we stopped by Gizdich Ranch in Watsonville last weekend to pick up a bushel of apples for [...]
Strwberry Capitol?! Awesome. Old barns, hay bales and PIE? Yum! I’m sold.
Rheas last blog post..Nursery Rhyme Gone Bad
yeah, pretty cool huh! In the summer, we go berry picking and in the fall, apples. Each time, we stop and get pie. My husband does not really understand why they don’t have pumpkin pie in the summer, he thinks of it as a year round dessert!
[...] weeks ago (oh, wow, I think it might have been October!) I wrote about our family visit to Gizdich Ranch in Watsonville. While there, I purchased a bushel of apples, two kinds, Pinova and Golden Delicious. And today I [...]