{"id":480534,"date":"2026-09-30T14:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T14:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/480534\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T14:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T14:52:11","slug":"why-one-of-the-last-stone-fruit-growers-in-the-valley-of-hearts-delight-is-downsizing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/480534\/","title":{"rendered":"Why One of the Last Stone Fruit Growers in the Valley of Heart’s Delight Is Downsizing"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, you may already know the story of the Valley of Heart\u2019s Delight. Before Silicon Valley took root in the Santa Clara Valley, immigrants from all over the world planted close to 100,000 acres of fruit trees and picked, processed and shipped<\/a> the apricots, peaches, plums and more.<\/p>\n

Nearly all of that is gone now, paved over and replaced with suburbs and office parks. Just a handful of fruit farmers remain<\/a>, and they\u2019re aging out.<\/p>\n

Andy Mariani, one of that last handful, is 80 years old. He told KQED he\u2019s tired of losing money year after year and struggling to make payroll.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t work anymore. It\u2019s no longer economically viable to have this farm,\u201d Mariani said, sitting in a gazebo to one side of the farm store. Somewhere nearby, chickens interrupted him periodically to proclaim for all the world to hear they just laid another egg. We gazed out across the parking lot to neat rows of fruit trees and flowering bushes designed to draw in hummingbirds, bees and other pollinators.<\/p>\n

\"\"Stone fruit on sale at the farm store at Andy\u2019s Orchard in Morgan Hill on July 16, 2021. <\/p>\n

\"\"A quiet moment in the farm store at Andy\u2019s Orchard in Morgan Hill on Aug. 12, 2026. Bay Area customers come from far and wide during the summer, when stone fruit is in season. <\/p>\n

Mariani knows a lot about fruit farming, and he wants to write a book about it while he still can. He is not giving up on fruit farming altogether, but the family farm<\/a> in Morgan Hill, the one with the little farm store and the summer fruit-picking events that fill the rows with laughing, running children, has one more growing season before he hands the property to a real estate developer.<\/p>\n

As first reported by the Morgan Hill Times<\/a>, Mariani has signed an option agreement with a Southern California firm marketing a 376-home subdivision on the 58-acre property. A draft environmental impact report for the project is expected this fall, followed by a public review period.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s organized opposition. State housing law puts a heavy finger on the scale, generally forcing local governments to approve qualifying developments. But Green Foothills, one of several environmental groups opposing the project, argues that Santa Clara County officials can still say no here, because the law makes an exception when a site lacks adequate water or wastewater facilities, and the developer would have to drill new wells and build a new on-site wastewater system.<\/p>\n

Mariani is not \u201changing up his shears\u201d just yet, as a recent New York Times article<\/a> implied. He still intends to farm 20 acres of land he leases now nearby. But he said he understands that word of his soft-retirement has set off a panic among his super fans here in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.<\/p>\n

Back in August, during the height of stone fruit season, Mary Balmana drove all the way down from San Francisco \u2014 a two-hour drive, each way \u2014 to stock up on cherries, apricots and peaches, like the August Flame peach and the Cal Red.<\/p>\n

\"\"A peach ripens on a tree at Andy\u2019s Orchard in Morgan Hill on Aug. 12, 2026. Tree-ripened fruit is more delicate and finicky to grow than most varieties sold today. \u00a0(Beth LaBerge\/KQED)<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have to peel them because it\u2019s so luscious,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s tender, sweet beyond belief, and it just speaks for itself. I don\u2019t have to do anything to it. It tastes like the peaches that I grew up with that we used to pick from a neighbor\u2019s farm, you know, when we would go visit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Balmana spotted Mariani in the store, she asked to have a photo taken with him.<\/p>\n

In many ways, Mariani\u2019s family history mirrors the last century of the Valley of Heart\u2019s Delight. His father came to the Santa Clara Valley<\/a> from a little island off the coast of Croatia in 1931.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was hardly the first to grow apricots in Cupertino. Spanish mission fathers planted trees in the region as early as the mid-1700s, and after the Gold Rush and the railroads in the 19th century, the Santa Clara Valley became a world-famous producer of dried and canned stone fruits.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s ancient history, submerged beneath the Pacific Ocean, left a legacy of fertile soil for farming. Add to that the cool nights of the Santa Clara Valley, especially in winter, and you have a region second to none for stone fruit.<\/p>\n

As other farmers packed up and left the Santa Clara Valley, Mariani leaned into new ways to make money: selling to chefs at the Santa Monica Farmers Market<\/a> down south, educational fruit picking tours and tastings<\/a>, as well as selling pies and other goodies at the farm\u2019s retail store.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people can farm at 80; fewer at 90,\u201d said David Karp, a pomologist at UC Riverside\u2019s botany department and Mariani\u2019s business partner. The two recently traveled together to visit Mariani\u2019s relatives in Croatia.<\/p>\n

\"\"Fruit orchardist Andy Mariani drives through his farm, Andy\u2019s Orchard, in Morgan Hill on Aug. 12, 2026.\u00a0(Beth LaBerge\/KQED)<\/p>\n

Karp confirms that climate change and urbanization are gradually forcing the Valley of Heart\u2019s Delight into the history books, even though Mariani will continue farming for the time being. Karp noted they stopped selling summer fruit at the Santa Monica Farmers Market a month early this year, in July instead of August.<\/p>\n

He has no doubt that whatever crops emerge next summer, the fruit will sell out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot more demand for Andy\u2019s fruit than there is fruit,\u201d Karp said.<\/p>\n

Even though fresh fruit fans have proven willing to pay more, rising costs still make it challenging to run an operation like Andy\u2019s Orchard.<\/p>\n

\"\"A worker picks peaches at Andy\u2019s Orchard, in Morgan Hill on Aug. 12, 2026. Even though foodies are willing to pay more for Mariani\u2019s fruit, he notes that it costs more to grow that kind of fruit, too. <\/p>\n

\"\"Fruit orchardist Andy Mariani at his farm, Andy\u2019s Orchard, in Morgan Hill on Aug. 12, 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe pay more than minimum wage because our people are skilled,\u201d Mariani said. \u201cWe have workers that have worked for us for over 40 years, and so they know the orchard as well as I do, and because of that skill level, we pay \u2018em well. And they\u2019re in Silicon Valley, too. They need to get more money because it\u2019s an expensive place to live<\/a>. They get free rent, actually, but on the other hand, it\u2019s still expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only getting more so with each Silicon Valley boom. Where once the Marianis were one farming family among many, they have grown more and more isolated as the decades passed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re basically surrounded by urban development now. We\u2019re just a little piece of the jigsaw puzzle that hasn\u2019t been put in yet,\u201d he said, waving his hand to gesture at the neat rows of fruit trees in front of the farm store. Between this property and the nearest freeway exit, most of the land is paved over with housing developments, retail malls and office buildings.<\/p>\n

Paved land is also hotter land<\/a>, which is growing hotter thanks to climate change. In addition to the growing threat from oak root fungus and ravenous squirrels, Mariani said crops are shrinking because the winters and the nights aren\u2019t as cool as they used to be. This year, he said, was the orchard\u2019s worst on record. Cherries came in at about 5% of a normal harvest, and his signature Baby Crawford peach crop failed almost completely.<\/p>\n

\"\"Fruit orchardist Andy Mariani at his farm, Andy\u2019s Orchard, in Morgan Hill on Aug. 12, 2026. \u00a0(Beth LaBerge\/KQED)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes to the point where you wonder what you\u2019re doing, even though you love what you are doing. I think it\u2019s time for me to downscale, and continue doing where my passion is, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cModern society seems to define progress as escaping physical work, even when that work leads to something very special,\u201d he wrote in a recent newsletter. \u201cOur once picturesque agricultural landscape that defined the valley was not simply replaced by what we call progress. Within that landscape there was also a culture, a special way of life. Unfortunately, as evidenced over several decades now, that way of life became increasingly difficult to financially sustain as the region transformed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proud of his life\u2019s work and that of his ancestors, Mariani bristles at the idea of keeping the orchard going just for show, standing around, as he put it, \u201cwith my bib overalls and this and that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d become a caricature of myself,\u201d Mariani said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mariani added there are plans to develop a year-round indoor farmers market in Morgan Hill, a project he\u2019s keen to participate in. In the meantime, for his super fans, there\u2019s one more growing season in store for Andy\u2019s Orchard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, you may already know the story of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-480534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}