Farm Store At Cal Poly Pomona

Hi, Farmer Tom Spellman here at Cal Poly Pomona. Today we're at the AgriScape Center and Farm Store, a branch of Cal Poly Pomona that is set up to market a lot of the homegrown produce that they do right here on campus. It's incorporated into their learning programs. The students get hands-on experience in growing the fruits and packaging the fruits and actually marketing the fruits. It's middle of October now, just about Halloween time, and today's big event is p Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo are both real ag-oriented universities. Lots of programs as far as fruit growing, vegetable growing, horticulture, agriculture, and Dave Wilson Nursery has worked closely with the Cal Poly system over the last few years to promote backyard orchard culture and to promote new and unusual varieties to the market. Through the horticultural program here at Cal Poly Pomona, they grow a lot of their own nursery stocks. So they're growing through the farm store, selling through the farm store a lot of the material that they grow here on campus. So shrubbery, perennials, flowers, some fruit trees, some beautiful pl Again here in the farm store, they carry lots of their own home grown produce. Here's Cal Poly grown ruby grapefruits. Here's Cal Poly grown cuc So they market a lot of their own produce. They also bring in a lot of gourmet products. So they have specialty drinks and specialty sodas. They have specialty olive oils and imported fruits and olives. They do all kinds of holiday theme material. They do gift baskets at Christmas with citrus and fresh locally grown fruit. They do the p They're always working something in around the holidays. Like I said earlier, the seasonal focus in October is really p And they've got them all through the farm store. You can pick out giant p You can pick out little tiny p The most fun thing to do is bring the kids out, come on out here in the field, run around and pick your own. When you're visiting the Cal Poly Pomona Farm Store and AgriScape Center, make sure to come up to the north end of the parking lot. We have an experimental planning here of deciduous fruit trees that are all done as backyard orchard style. Lots of three in ones, lots of four in ones. A big citrus planting in the middle. So it's really a good idea to take a look at this for some ideas on what you can do in your backyard. Here we are at another one of Cal Poly's orchards. This is the south orchard down on the south side of Valley Boulevard. And this orchard was put in as a dual purpose orchard. Here, n It's made up of a multitude of varieties, peaches, pl The second purpose is to provide a source of fresh fruit for the farm store to have from early in the stone fruit season until all the way at the end of the season and maybe November.