Swank Farms offers healthy family fun

Bonnie and Dick Swank of Swank Farms will be the first to tell you that they never expected to have one of the most well-known corn mazes in the Hollister area.

Each fall, delighted customers pack their farm to pick pumpkins and have a good time. But right now, their focus is bringing fresh organic summer vegetables straight from the farm to local farmers markets.

They grow a wide variety of vegetables: English peas, spring greens, summer squash, bell peppers, corn and tomatoes. Eight kinds of cucumbers, a mix of eggplant varieties, loads of beans, and year-round cauliflower and broccoli round out their crop selections. Their tomatoes are extremely popular because of the variety, quality and flavor.

Dick’s grandfather, Bill Maggini, purchased the 60-acre property in 1928 in the northern part of San Benito County. Dick decided to raise his family on the ranch his grandfather started.
The original plum trees were pulled to grow vegetable row crops. They added some fruit trees, pumpkins, gourds and ornamental corn. Soon the ranch wasn’t big enough to grow all they wanted, so they added 210 acres to the farm.

With the expansion came financial ups and downs, so they decided to go into agritourism and open a corn maze and fall pumpkin patch. They also opted to become organic and received certification from the California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) association in 2006.

Between the farmers markets they attend and the agritourism, they find the direct-to-consumer way of selling their products gives them the satisfaction of running a successful enterprise.

“We are extremely proud of what we have accomplished over the years,” Dick said. “We want you to have the best produce we can possibly grow, along with an abundance of family fun.”

Truly a family-run enterprise, Swank is a generational farm with many years of learned experience. They know what it means to raise products of the highest quality while having respect for the land.

With organic certification, a wide variety of high-quality produce and an agribusiness built on fun, they are truly a farm of the future.

Stop by the Concord farmers market and pick up some great organic vegetables.

The Concord Farmers Market is in Todos Santos Plaza Tuesdays & Thursdays.