Carlsbad, CA: Fun in the Flower Fields 🌼(and Strawberry Picking too!🍓)
Plus a food tasting tour, a farmer's market and a cute bunny called Cupcake!
Where did four years go? I began this blog on Substack on April 4, 2020, shortly after the first pandemic lockdowns began. After 139 posts, I’m still at it. Usually I write about food (hence the title!), but sometimes, like today, I write about flowers, or clocks or road trips, friends or family. I’m glad you’re here. Without your comments, likes, shares and subscriptions, there wouldn’t be any reason to keep going. So please, if you feel this newsletter is valuable, let me know, forward it to a friend, send me questions, thoughts or ideas for future posts, or just say hello in the comments or by return email! And, if you haven’t already done so, please press the subscribe button —it’s free, but that doesn’t mean I don’t try my best to make it worth your time. Thanks for reading!
I grew up on the San Francisco Peninsula in a small house with a big garden that was always filled with flowers. In spring there were daffodils and crocuses, sweet-scented roses; neat little borders of purple, blue and yellow pansies with frowning faces, and snapdragons in bright hues standing guard behind them, their dragon lips ready to swallow a finger when a curious child pinched the flower’s sides and poked one in. The pink and red camellias, my mother’s pride and joy, would often appear floating in a round glass bowl at the center of the table on Friday nights, lending a festive air to our sabbath meal.
Unfortunately, my gardening skills don’t compare with those of my mother, or my grandmother, aunts or cousins for that matter. But I still do love flowers. So when my husband Jeff got an invitation to visit Carlsbad—another beach town about two hours south of our home in L.A.—and its famous flower fields last month, I was excited to go. It turned out to be a veritable feast for the senses—well mostly for the eyes, since ranunculus flowers, planted on about 55 acres (though, not all are in bloom at once), are poisonous so definitely shouldn’t be eaten, and they don’t have much of a scent.
Wandering among the rows of flowers, which have been developed in 13 different shades, felt akin to tumbling into a rainbow or having a quasi psychedelic experience with no aftereffects except the deep desire to bring some of that color home—which you can do by buying flowers at the onsite gardening store or by ordering a bouquet on the website here or bulbs here.
Fred Clarke, general manager of the Flower Fields, doesn’t seem to have lost his enthusiasm for the locale, even after 18 years.
“This is one of the most beautiful places you can imagine here in Southern California,” he said.
A little history
Even though it’s only open to the public for a short period of time in spring, the Flower Fields are a year round farming operation in Carlsbad within a half mile of the ocean.
With so many beautiful flowers in the world, how did the ranunculus, with the strange name that means “little frog” in Latin and is awkward to pluralize (ranunculi and ranunculuses are both accepted), come to be king here?
Part of the buttercup family and a product of the Mediterranean, the ranunculus, is perfectly suited to the coastal California climate—wet winters (at least lately!) followed by dry summers, Clarke said.
In the ‘40s and ‘50s, poinsettias were sold as cut flowers on the property. After poinsettias became more popular as potted plants and moved to the greenhouse, ranunculus were grown for their bulbs, which gardeners prized. But then it was discovered the blooms made great cut flowers, lasting about two weeks in a vase.
When people started invading the property to admire the blooms, the owners decided they might as well charge for admission instead of running off the trespassers. And that was the start of a business that now attracts some 250,000 visitors annually.1
About 25 years ago, the Ecke Family, which owns the land, and the City of Carlsbad set aside the 55-acre parcel as an agricultural gift for the community in perpetuity.
Definitely an anomaly in urbanized Southern California, it’s “really the last bastion of what was once the floriculture capital of the United States,” Clarke said. “That’s why we’re here today, to keep this not just for this generation, but for future generations to enjoy.”
The power of flowers to improve your outlook is apparently another side benefit of visiting the fields, Clarke told us.
“No matter what your mood when you get here, the flowers will make you happy,” he said.
I thought he might be right as I immediately began smiling as I meandered through the rows pointing my iPhone at every bloom I saw.
Blueberry🫐 picking—and strawberries🍓too!
While the flowers were not edible, we discovered a patch of blueberries on the property that was. For $8, you could fill a basket and pop a few berries into your mouth while foraging for the ones with the deepest blue color. It took a while (mainly because of persistent snacking!). My best-laid intention to take some home to bake into muffins came to nought, with the fruit disappearing long before we made it to our house. I don’t regret it. The berries were sweet and tart, with a satisfying crunch as you bit into them.
We had better luck with the strawberry fields across the road. The Carlsbad Strawberry Company is another family-owned company that goes back generations.
Strawberries are a huge crop in California, harvested year round in five regions, including the coastal area where we were visiting. All of my life, I’ve observed workers—mostly migrant laborers—bending over these low-lying strawberry plants to harvest the fruit as we’ve driven by on road trips.
I can’t help feeling guilty about the toll this intense physical work takes on these workers, not only those who pick strawberries, but the many other California crops as well—tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, grapes, artichokes, almonds, apricots—and on and on. We enjoy the fruits of their toil—literally—but usually don’t give a thought to how it affects their bodies and psyches.
With this in mind, I thought I’d try picking some strawberries; it was $15 a bucket. How tough could it be to fill one?
Tough! The rows are so narrow that folks with large feet—like me (size 10) and Jeff (size 13)—have a hard time not tripping. Little kids, on the other hand, with small feet and low to the ground, make perfect pickers!
Then you bend down to pick a berry that looks perfect from above but isn’t quite ripe or a critter took a bite of it first! It’s a bit of a treasure hunt—and a big thrill when you find a perfect piece of fruit! It took the better part of an hour to fill a bucket—and it didn’t help that we were sampling a fair number as we worked. They were sweet and juicy and very red—as you can see!
And then…
We took a food tour, something that was offered to my husband by the Carlsbad tourism folks. I wasn’t too enthusiastic at first, thinking I might like to do my own food discovery, but our personable guide, David Jenson, was as knowledgeable about Carlsbad history and local trees as its restaurants, so it was a treat. We sampled food from six eateries.
All were delicious, but my favorites were the gnocchi in mushroom and pesto sauce from Cicciotti’s, tacos al pastor from Señor Grubby’s, the strawberry shortcake from Strawberry Shack and the sparkling wine from Witch Creek Winery, which also sells coffee and antiques.
We learned later that there was a Michelin-starred restaurant in Carlsbad called Jeune et Jolie, but it was undoubtedly out of our price range. I did think it was a lot of fun to take a food tour, something I’ve never done but hope to do again. It’s a good way to get to know a town, meet interesting people, sample a variety of food and find reasons to return. Here’s a link to the excellent one in Carlsbad.
On our way out of town, we managed a visit to Carlsbad’s lively Wednesday farmers market and its terrific Aqua Hedionda Lagoon Discovery Center, a hands-on learning center for children and adults, with numerous rescued and protected animals, including snakes, geckos, rabbits and tortoises. I came away with six eggs from the onsite coop of resident chickens, a crush on the resident bunny, Cupcake, and a newfound appreciation for the importance of preserving the Agua Hedionda Lagoon, a local resource.
P.S.: If you do have kids, grandkids, or kids or any sort, especially if they’re into Lego toys (and what kid isn’t?), another thing that you might want to add to your vacation agenda is a visit to the Legoland theme park, also located in Carlsbad. With a waterpark, aquarium and dinosaur rides, it does sound like a perfect vacation pick for families. And while you’re at it, you might add a trip to the San Diego Zoo, just 35 miles down the road!
For more about the town of Carlsbad and a guide to taking pictures of the Flower Fields and other local sights, please check out Jeff’s PhotowalksTV video below:
That’s it for now. Thanks again for reading, liking and commenting. See you soon!
Ruth
Jeff Zevely, “Carlsbad Flower Fields: Meet the man behind the colorful displays,” CBS8.com, April 5, 2023, https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/zevely-zone/carlsbad-flower-fields/509-043234e8-b2e1-4405-a1ad-76840b3a3e6d
Who needs microdosing when we’ve got your bountiful photos? You’re giving Jeff a run for his money 😂
Congrats on four years, Ruth! I'm glad I found you on Substack!!