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Corn and Beans in the Delta Breeze
Location, Diversity & Collaborative Ventures sustain Dwelley Farms

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by Karen Van Epen

Only a few years ago, the San Joaquin River Delta towns of Oakley and Brentwood were strictly rural, surrounded by orchards and fields. Excellent soil and the cooling delta breezes were the most important local resources.

“The climate here is unique—perfect for sweet corn,” observed Mark Dwelley, third generation Contra Costa County farmer. “But development is narrowing down what ground’s available. The last two years, the housing growth has just exploded.”

Mark and Jeannette Dwelley operate a roadside stand between Oakley and Brentwood, close to where their parents and grandparents tended orchards. Jeannette’s family were early settlers in the district. Her grandfather grew almonds on nearby Marsh Creek and her dad, Bob Hansen, farmed the orchard part-time. Today the Dwelleys lease that land from Jeannette’s uncle, raising vegetables next to the 100-year-old almond trees.

Mark’s grandfather, Charles, was a rural mail carrier who appreciated the rich farmland of eastern Contra Costa County. In 1926 he planted 40 acres of walnuts outside of Brentwood. Kenneth, Mark’s dad, liked farming too, and went to UC Davis. When he graduated, he came back to farm the home orchard. He bought apricot, almond and cherry orchards, and planted more apricots.

At one point, before Mark decided to take over, Kenneth sold the farm and retired. When the buyers let the place run down and defaulted on the loan, “Dad un-retired,” said Mark. “He’s the one who has really made things blossom here.”

Now 82, Kenneth and his wife, Mary, live near the fruit stand on a 30-acre apple orchard. He still works on the family farm, grafting trees in the orchard and providing advice gleaned from his long experience.

Mark’s brothers Bruce and Chuck also farmed for several years before moving north to Fortuna in Humboldt County. Mark, the youngest brother, earned a bachelor’s degree in Agricul-tural Science and Management in 1976 from UC Davis, and decided to go in with his dad.

Father and son share a passion for farming. “My mother always said I’d turn out to be a farmer because I read the literature all the time,” Kenneth recalled. “Same with Mark. If we were looking for a piece of literature, we’d always go to his bedside because we knew that’s where it would end up.”

Everything in a Roadside Stand

Eastern Contra Costa County has long been a popular destination for city folks in search of good, fresh produce at bargain prices. The roads are dotted with signs for u-pick fruit, homemade pies, jams and the like.

Dwelley Farms has operated their fruit stand since the early 1970s. “The ranch has quite a few soil types, great for a large number of crops in fairly small patches,” pointed out Kenneth. “It just seemed like a real good fit for direct selling. We tried everything—okra, grapes, black-eyed peas. My idea was to see what would sell, what would attract people.”

The fruit stand could count on heavy business from longtime customers who were drawn by their own connections to the country life. Things have changed, however. In recent years business has flattened out at the stand, perhaps because faithful older customers are aging, or today’s young families are too busy, or because of the proliferation of farmers’ markets.

“Business peaked about four years ago,” said Mark. “Since then we’ve re-adjusted our emphasis. We thought our efforts were better put else-where. It’s a tremendous amount of work to run a roadside stand, but we do fine because we’ve managed ours for so many years and we have such capable people.”

In the past, the stand was open late into the fall, but now they close it up in September. “We used to grow late crops like broccoli, winter squash and pumpkins, but we don’t do that any longer,” explained Jeannette, who manages the stand and does the farm bookkeeping. She taught school until their children were born.

People Working Together

Some unique collaborations allow Dwelley Farms to thrive. Their fields are kept healthy with a new variation on the classic Midwest corn and beans rotation. This version follows sweet corn with two nitrogen-fixing legumes, green beans and alfalfa. Working together with a couple of neighboring farms, they trade ground. As fields come out of alfalfa, corn is planted for the next season, then beans. The system works well with northwest Brentwood’s heavy clay soil.

“There’s only a finite amount of land in this area. It helps to work with this alfalfa grower, since he’s got a real good market for horse hay,” said Mark. “Our crops provide a rotation for him and it works well for us. This way it’s people working together for each other.”

Rather than selling their sweet corn and green beans to a wholesaler, as most growers do, Mark and a fellow farmer pack and market the vegetables themselves. Collaborating with their fields and with the marketing “enables us to be a little more aggressive in our sales,” Mark said. “There’s something there to fall back on.”

No Simple Answer

“When the city grows from a central hub, it lessens interference with farming,” said Mark. “But the minor subdivisions out in the country—the ‘new immigrants’ who want to raise a horse on five acres—can really have a hard time understanding the practices that are necessary in farming. They’re just learning what farming’s all about.

“Nowadays people won’t buy corn with an ear worm in it, so it’s hard for us to raise sweet corn without dust and spray. We explain to the neighbors what we’re doing, but the education process is somewhat difficult.

“Groups stopped one development over in the San Ramon Valley,” Mark recounted. “But then the houses are just pushed out to somewhere else.

There’s no simple answer. You can build denser in town, or up on the hillsides, but these folks all need a place to live that they can afford. There’s just no simple answer.”

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