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PICK THIS: DAHLIAS AT DYNOMITE FARM
Tucked away down a residential street off of Chanticleer Avenue in Live Oak is a secret garden filled with berries and honey, psychedelic flowers and chickens that lay chocolate eggs. Dynomite Farm is a real place, but this oasis of edible plants and wildly colored dahlias feels like another world.
This Eden is the work of one man, Markus Hutnak, who began transforming the backyard of his 1930s home into a market garden in 2016. Two years ago, he pivoted away from vegetables and went all-in on dahlias after attending a Monterey Bay Dahlia Society meeting in his neighborhood. Today, he has dozens of varieties, ranging from compact, tennis ball-sized blooms to some as big as a child’s head with twisting, fiery petals.
Throughout the year, Hutnak welcomes visitors by appointment only for technology-free time among the flowers, and a u-pick bouquet to bring home. The price is donation-based. “I don’t want people to look at a flower and think about the price of each stem,” Hutnak told me. “If it calls to you, take it home.”
Children are welcome and can feed those chocolate-colored-egg-laying chickens, a special French breed known as Marans, with shining copper feathers. There is also space for group gatherings.
This week, I spent an hour at Dynomite Farm fawning over all of the whimsical or geometric petals. I felt refreshed in a way that’s hard to describe, and came home with a bouquet that I can’t stop staring at.
Find information about Dynomite Farm in my guide to local u-picks – it came out in July, but if you missed it, August is the perfect season to carve out time for a visit.
2331 Mattison Lane, Santa Cruz; dynomitefarm.com.
BEST OF THE WEEK AHEAD
Below, find a curated list of the best food and drink events in Santa Cruz County for the coming week. At the top, I share my picks of unmissable local happenings.
NEWS OF THE WEEK
ICYMI – here are the food news stories from Lookout that you might have missed, plus important news from beyond our borders picked by yours truly.
- Lily Belli on Food: Chaminade’s Vine to View dinner impresses; filling Ella’s vacancy (Lookout)
- Eaters Digest: Smash burger at the Point in Scotts Valley (Lookout)
- New night market is coming to downtown (Lookout)
- Watsonville’s Freedom Bakery celebrates 50th anniversary (Lookout)
