San Diego Organic Farms

My journalistic “beat” encompasses not only vineyards and wineries, but also produce and specialty items in and around Ramona. So I’m happy to talk about an aspect of agriculture that deserves more attention.

Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA for short, is a concept by which a consumer, for a fee paid in advance, buys a share of a farmer’s crop. In exchange for helping to finance the farm’s expenses, each shareholder, or “subscriber,” receives a box of fresh, organically grown produce each week.

The concept dates back about 30 years to Japan, according to Local Harvest, a Santa Cruz-based website that tracks CSAs and Farmers Markets. The idea spread to Europe and then came to Massachusetts in 1985. The number of CSA farms across the United States and Canada has grown from 1,500 in 2005 to more than 4,000, today.

San Diego Organic Farms, on Hanson Lane in Ramona, is a CSA operation. Owner Joseph Zenovic has been farming since 2002 and has been operating a CSA farm since 2006.

“I started out with a garden, 50 by 50 feet,” Zenovic said.  “Now it’s over seven acres.”

“We grow a lot of things that we encourage people to experiment with, like kohlrabi and rutabagas,” he said. “Plus all the standard stuff. We grow 65 different vegetables.”

His farm’s entry on the Local Harvest website includes an alphabetical listing of his crops and their seasonal availability. Beets, broccoli, onions and tomatoes are offered year-round, for example, while items like summer squash, sweet corn and turnips are available in season. Fruits, eggs and flowers are also offered. The operation is certified organic.

Zenovic said he currently has approximately 30 subscribers who pick up their produce at his farmstand on Hanson Lane.

“It’s mostly local,” he said. “Some from Lakeside. One couple comes up from San Diego. But they’re mostly from Ramona.”

“We get a lot of senior citizens,” he said. “We give them a special rate.”

Zenovic, a Ramona resident since 1988, originally came from Pearl River in Rockland County, N. Y., about 25 miles north of New York City. There he gardened as a hobby while working as a landscaping contractor.

He said he first came west to build parks and recreational facilities, including Stelzer Park in Lakeside.

He decided to make the West his permanent home when he noticed that he didn’t have to "scrape any ice off my windshield or shovel any snow off my driveway.”

Zenovic has also worked as a building contractor. He said he has built 100 houses in the San Diego Country Estates area over the past 15 or 20 years.

He has also become involved in civic affairs, winning election in November to the Ramona Municipal Water District Board for District IV.

Zenovic said he was influenced by a friend back east who had a CSA farm.

“I think it’s a great idea, both for the farmer and people in town,” said Zenovic, who is 67.

For more information: San Diego Organic Farms, 955 Hanson Lane, 619-994-7705

Farmstand Hours: 1 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays; 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturdays