Capay Valley Grown Open Farm Day

The signs are orange and green, and each carries a farm number. They stand at farm gates along Highway 16 in Yolo County’s Capay Valley, and the printed map warned that many of those entrances are easy to miss. Two were marked as hidden turns. On Sunday, October 4, 2026, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., six small farms on that map opened to anyone who came. Admission was free and visitors could take the farms in any order. Capay Valley Grown, the farmers’ collective that runs the day, asked only for an RSVP, which brought the map and itinerary by email about a week ahead. Cell service in the valley can be spotty, so the organizers advised printing the map before leaving home. The day ran rain or shine. Smoking and pets were not allowed, though service animals were welcome, and the organizers suggested bringing a cooler or basket for farm-stand buying.

The valley lies between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Capay Hills, under an hour northwest of Sacramento by the collective’s count. Open Farm Day falls on the Sunday after the Hoes Down Harvest Festival. In 2026 that was the 35th Hoes Down, held October 3 at Full Belly Farm in Guinda. The two days are run in partnership, but a Hoes Down ticket is not needed for the farm visits.

Six numbered gates

Number 1 was Sun Tracker Farm on Forest Avenue in Guinda, whose entrance is the last left on the road. It is a certified organic mixed fruit and vegetable farm with a flock of geese and some chickens. Its tour started at 11:30 a.m., and its stand sold seasonal produce. A listing on the EcoFarm site credits the farm’s soil to pastured poultry, compost, cover crops, and crop rotation.

At D & G Pumpkin on County Road 82 in Capay, which The Dirt calls D Bar G Pumpkin Patch, a family runs a pumpkin patch. Visitors could arrange succulents in pumpkins at noon or at 2 p.m. for a $40 materials charge, with no need to register. Coffee came from the Cork & Co Coffee truck.

Vitis & Ovis Farm sits on Highway 16 near Capay, behind one of the hidden turns. It is a certified organic, regenerative family farm with fruit trees, peppers, and other vegetables, plus a flock of ducks. The EcoFarm listing says the farm’s swales hold water and prevent erosion, while the ducks control pests, graze, and enrich the soil. Visitors met the ducklings, learned about pollinators, and shopped the farm stand while children used a farm-themed play area. Gisèle Herren runs the small orchard and duck farm with her parents and husband.

Grumpy Goats Farm, behind the other hidden turn on Highway 16, is one of the few organic olive orchards in the region. Its farmers, Pam Marvel and Stuart Littell, make bold, robust oils that the EcoFarm listing says are high in polyphenols. All day there were oil tastings and walks through an orchard close to harvest. At noon and 2 p.m. the farm ran its electric olive harvester.

Capay Hills Orchard on County Road 22 in Esparto is a family-run organic almond orchard that sells unpasteurized almonds and almond butter directly to customers. Visitors could watch the stone-ground almond butter being made and taste it.

The last stop was Polestar Farm on County Road 21A in Esparto, a 12-acre organic farm with 750 Royal Blenheim apricot trees and other fruit trees. Visitors could sit in the backyard gathering area, learn candle making, and take home a candle kit or something from the farm stand. The collective’s own Instagram save-the-date listed soap making there instead.

Between the stops, the map marked places to eat and drink:

• Tacos El Vaquero in Guinda
• Lucy’s Cafe & Farm Pantry in Esparto, open until 1 p.m.
• El Toro Market & Taqueria
• Sunberry Marketplace, which has its own pumpkin patch and sells mushrooms
• Taber Ranch Vineyard, serving wine and pizza
• Capay Valley Vineyards’ tasting room in Brooks
• The Séka Hills Olive Mill & Tasting Room in Brooks, which has a deli

Séka Hills belongs to the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation. The collective’s history page says the name means “home by the spring water” in the Patwin language.

Fifty farmers in one truck

The Capay Valley’s farm towns are Madison, Esparto, Guinda, and Rumsey. The Vaca Valley & Clear Lake Railroad linked them to wider markets in the late 1870s and closed in the 1930s. Farming stayed. Abridged, the PBS KVIE newsroom, reported in April 2026 that the valley’s hills make large mechanized plots hard to farm. That has helped keep its farms small and selling directly to the people who eat their food. “The farmers here really were pioneers in the whole farm-to-consumer agriculture, which has now become popular across the country,” said Lisa Leonard, who raises heritage livestock at Wind Dancer Ranch.

Capay Valley Grown dates its founding to 2004. The county visitor bureau, Visit Yolo, describes the start as a partnership among twenty-three farms and ranches that wanted to make their products easier to sell. Abridged gives a different count. It reported that the group began almost 20 years earlier as 10 local farmers who met regularly to work out an identity for the valley’s agriculture. Paul Muller, who founded Full Belly Farm, was one of those first members. He said the idea was to tell the valley’s story so people would visit and buy from local farmers. “Instead of 50 farmers in 50 trucks, it’s 50 farmers in one truck,” he said. At first that meant branded signs, farm maps, and promotion at farmers markets. Seasonal events came later, among them a Mother’s Day garden tour.

A grant, a map, and October 4, 2014

The first Open Farm Day came out of a state grant. From 2013 to 2015 the UC Small Farm Program ran a project called “Building a Farm Trail,” paid for by the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Specialty Crop Block Grant Program. It brought Capay Valley Grown together with North Yuba Grown and the Sacramento River Delta Grown Agritourism Association, and it hired marketing and tourism consultants to work with each group. In August 2014 Capay Valley Grown published its “Capay Valley Farm Trail Map” as an 18-by-20-inch brochure, along with a redesigned website by Bonnie Borucki. The group held its first annual Open Farm Day on Sunday, October 4, 2014.

Later the effort faded. Muller told Abridged that it fizzled as the original members turned to other things. Capay Valley Grown’s notice on the EcoFarm site says the valley’s landscape changed and the mission “gradually fell by the wayside.” A new generation of farmers then took it up, helped by a statewide push for agritourism.

That EcoFarm page describes an Open Farm Day held on a Sunday, October 5, presented by EcoFarm as part of the Hoes Down Harvest Festival. Its roster was different:

• Capay Valley Lavender, where Farmer Sherri ran lavender distillation demonstrations at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m.
• Polestar Farm, which held salve-making demos while the Esparto High School culinary program sold wood-fired pizza.

Capay Valley Grown is now volunteer-led and a project of Capay Valley Vision, a 501(c)(3). Each year it puts on the Rustic Ramble in spring, Open Farm Day in October, and the Holiday Gift Trail in December. For Herren, the collective does the marketing she has no time for, since she does everything from making jams to harvesting to printing labels. “It’s very hard to get people to just randomly stop by,” she said.

Leonard put it another way: “I don’t know a single farmer that isn’t happy to talk your ear off about what they do.”