Dirty Girl Produce – Profile

Joe Schirmer grew up in Santa Cruz and began working at Dirty Girl Produce in 1997 before buying the farm in 1999. A graduate of both UCSC and the UCSC Farm and Garden Apprenticeship Program, Joe worked on several farms gaining experience before striking out on his own…

Joe’s Early Girls are a Late-Season Stand Out

Yesterday at the Derby Street Farmers Market, Dirty Girl Produce’s Early Girl tomatoes completely SOLD OUT. There was this beautiful, jewel-like mound of them…and then in the blink of an eye they were gone. Thankfully, we’re planning well enough ahead to make sure we’ve got some for next week’s Late-Season Tomato Dinners (Sept. 13-16). One of the first confirmed menu items…

Signs of Summer

Today marks the first day of Summer 2011 and many signs of the season were on display at the Derby Street Market: fragrant basil, cherry tomatoes from Full Belly, summer squash & those knockout long stem Seascape strawberries from Lucero, and…

Market Report #14 – Cold Snap & Salsa

The Derby Street farmers market was bustling today, in a pre-Thanksgiving-panic sort of way. But the sun came out and most of our farmers seemed ready for the hordes. And Maria Catalan was ready with samples of her salsa…

Tomato Season 2010 off to a slow start

This year, because the rainy season went so long, we’ve pushed the dates for the 2010 Tomato Dinners back to September 15 – 19 and are watching and waiting. Recently, we’ve seen the first few cherry tomatoes and…

Dry-Farming with Joe

When we visited Joe Schirmer of Dirty Girl Produce back in April, he had many things to tell up in regards to climate, planting times, soil quality, and procuring information on patented seeds. But what really piqued our interest, was Joe’s knowledge of the practice of dry-farming, as well as its history…

Tomato Watch Week 10 – First Wave of Early Girls

Another thrilling episode from the sunny studios of Dirty Girl Productions!

Last time we heard from Joe Schirmer of Dirty Girl Produce, he had just finished planting his first wave of dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes. It is now June…

Tomato Watch Week 5 – Joe Goes Behind the Camera

Joe Schirmer of Dirty Girl Produce has taken Tomato Watch into his own hands! We had intended to cover the details of dry farming this week, but on Tuesday we received an email from Joe and shortly after that a video he shot himself of his tomatoes being planted. How cool is it to see the process of farming truly through a farmer’s eyes?…

Dirty Girl Produce – Tomato Watch Week 2

For this installment of Tomato Watch we took a trip down to Watsonville for a visit with Joe Schirmer of Dirty Girl Produce. We got some cool tractor footage, a crash course in dry-farming, and…

From the Kitchen – Tomato Dinners 2009

About a week before Tomato Dinners, when most of the tomatoes we will have to choose from are available for tasting, Chef Paul Canales and the cooks sit down with scores of varieties, mostly heirloom but some – like Early Girl-hybrids, and sort out which are the best, what their characteristics are, and how they might be prepared to best advantage. Amazingly, there is considerable variation even within varieties….