“We are currently growing and harvesting our summer commodities in addition to our 45 year-round items,” Lindsey Roberts, marketing communications director for Lakeside Organic Gardens LLC in Watsonville, CA, said on June 3. “To name just a few, we have broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, chicories, celery, bok choy, fennel, greens, herbs, kales, lettuces, leeks, radishes, beats, spinach and sweet baby broccoli.”

Roberts said that zucchini, squash, green beans, yellow wax beans and cucumbers are available now, and that bell peppers will begin harvesting in late July.

“Also, we’re excited and proud to announce that Lakeside Organic Gardens recently purchased nearly 200 acres of farmland in our home community in the Pajaro Valley,” she said. “A year ago, our community had a massive campaign to put up box stores like Walmart on top of some of our fertile farmland. Dick Peixoto, owner of Lakeside Organic Gardens, was a big advocate against the assault on our farmland. He worked hard to make it possible to buy some of that land and has made the commitment to convert it to organic farmland.”

She added that transition time to organic is three years, and once the process is completed Peixoto plans to keep it organic.

Watsonville voters slammed the door on the potential development of a piece of farmland just south of the city on Riverside Drive in June 2013. Peixoto, a strong advocate of organic farming, locked it behind them.

Peixoto’s Lakeside Organic Gardens purchased the 55-acre Sakata property, targeted for city annexation in last year’s unsuccessful Measure T campaign.

“It’s a good move for us as a company, and a good move for the Pajaro Valley to have that buffer to stop development from jumping out onto agricultural land,” said Peixoto. “We’ll keep it in farming. We have no interest in developing it.”

Watsonville has had its eye on the Sakata land and an adjoining 25-acre parcel owned by the Kett family for two decades. Measure T, spearheaded by Councilman Daniel Dodge, was the latest effort. The measure would have amended a 2002 growth boundary, negotiated after two failed attempts in the 1990s to annex the Sakata-Kett properties, to permit another annexation bid and the potential for commercial development. But in June 2013, voters soundly rejected the proposal.

Roberts said that the great things about growing on the Central Coast of California are the climate and the soil, besides the obvious: being able to live and work in one of the most beautiful areas of the country. With the variations in soil content throughout the valley — from sandy to heavy clay and everything in between — it has a wide variety of nutrient rich soil that cannot be found elsewhere.

“The microclimate in this coastal valley surrounded by the mountains and the ocean are blessed with cool coastal weather that lettuces love, and near the mountains we have the warm weather that squash and bell peppers love,” said Roberts. “Our climate enables us to grow 40 varieties of vegetables, and many of them are produced year-round.”