Deardorff Family Farms

W.H. Deardorff started his company in Los Angeles in 1937, bringing together crops from growers scattered across the basin into a single operation. His son, William, eventually joined him, and when J.B. Jackson came aboard in 1945, they renamed it Deardorff-Jackson Company. For a while, it worked.

Then Los Angeles began its sprawl. Farmland gave way to housing developments and strip malls through the 1950s and 1960s, pushing the operation north to Ventura County. Bill and Tom Deardorff, the third generation, took over during the move and began handling everything from planting to sales themselves.

Scott Deardorff joined his father, Bill, in 1985. Tom Deardorff II followed in the late-90s, continuing his father’s work. The two cousins now run Deardorff Family Farms from Oxnard, where the coastal climate and deep soils produce the kind of celery that snaps cleanly when you break off a stalk – the exact one you’ll find in our Full Circle farm boxes.

The family began transitioning to organic farming in 2005, but it was a slower process than most people realized. Fields have to go three years without synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, or herbicides before the first organic harvest and buffer zones are created between organic and conventional fields.

In the fields, you might see a tractor pulling what looks like an oversized blowtorch, burning weeds instead of spraying them. Recycled plastic tarps lie across some of the beds, blocking weeds and keeping moisture in the soil and ladybugs and lacewings move through the crops (these are beneficial insects the farm releases to handle pests without pesticides). Cilantro and alyssum grow at the edges, attracting more helpful bugs.

Water gets monitored through weather stations and soil sensors that feed data to the irrigation crew’s handheld devices in real time, and drip lines deliver water directly to the roots. In Ventura County, where water has always been precious, the technology just confirms an old farming rule about never wasting a drop.

Four generations have worked this land now, each one adapting to California’s changing landscape while holding onto the philosophy that good farming requires taking care of what you’ve been given. The celery growing in Oxnard today is the result of that inheritance, passed down through sons and cousins who learned that the soil, the water, and the air don’t belong to any one generation. They’re just borrowed for a while. ⚘

How To Add Farm Stand Products to Your Delivery
Full Circle members – head on over to our online Farm Stand Market to customize your upcoming delivery. Market is open from noon on Thursday until 6 p.m. on your cutoff date. After you confirm your produce items, click the orange button “Confirm and Continue To Other Farm Products” to add farm products to your delivery.

Not part of our farm family? Find out if we deliver to your neighborhood.

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Photos: Deardorff Family Farms