About Us
Our Story
Sea to Sky Farm is a CCOF certified organic operation, located in northern Santa Cruz County. Two ranches comprise Sea to Sky Farm:
1) 24 acres located 10 minutes from the ocean at 1600’ in elevation, surrounded by coastal redwoods with natural springs, and sites of Native American historical significance in the mountain community of Bonny Doon, aka The "Sky" Farm. This location gets all the heat (and cold extremes)!
2) 12 acres comprise the "Sea" Farm aka Rancho del Oso, located north of the coastal community of Davenport, nestled among Big Basin Redwoods State Park in a luscious agricultural valley along Waddell Creek known as a healing valley. This location is a cooler growing climate, with a stronger coastal influence than Bonny Doon.
The Sky farm in Bonny Doon was started by Chris and Dana Laughlin on Thanksgiving of 2018. The Sea farm was added shortly after.
Chris runs the daily operations, and comes from four generations of family farming – her great grandfather, grandfather, father and both brothers are farmers.
Our backgrounds include nonprofit ocean conservation, wildlife biology, old growth canopy research, backcountry guiding, and youth conservation corps work in Yosemite National Park.
Sea to Sky Farm produce can be found at eight farmers' markets:
Grand Lake, Oakland every Saturday.
Temescal, Oakland, and Live Oak in Santa Cruz every Sunday.
South Berkeley every Tuesday.
Downtown Santa Cruz every Wednesday.
Monterey every Friday at the Del Monte Shopping Center.
Sea to Sky Farm CSA program (Community Supported Agriculture) serving Bonny Doon, Felton, and Santa Cruz spring through fall, locally owned supermarkets in Santa Cruz and Felton (Wild Roots, Shoppers Corner, New Leaf, Staff of Life), Elroy's Fine Foods in Monterey, Santa Cruz restaurants and Veritable Vegetable in San Francisco. Find Us.
Our mission at Sea to Sky Farm is to use sustainable farming practices to provide healthy, organic produce to our local Santa Cruz community and bay area, while honoring and protecting the land, watershed, and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
Farming organically, sustainably, and ecologically makes a difference not just in the quality and taste of the produce, it also helps to maintain a balance on the farm. By using farming practices such as cover cropping, crop rotation, crop diversity, organic compost, beneficial plantings and beneficial insects, minimal tilling, drip irrigation, hedgerows and acreage untouched and left natural, we can maintain healthy soil, healthy watersheds, less pest pressure, implement conservation and erosion measures, and care for the environment as a whole.
On August 20, 2020, we sustained damage from the CZU lightning fire that burned multiple sections of the Bonny Doon Sky Farm and surrounding area of the Sea Farm near Waddell Beach / Creek..
In 2022, we partnered with the Community Alliance of Family Farmers on a wildlife preparedness film, sharing our experience and lessons learned from the CZU lightning fire complex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff0IBoeve1c
In 2024, we're continuing to rebuild from the fire and currently in our fifth year of production. Our main crops include (all CCOF organic) sweet potatoes, blueberries, dry farmed winter squash, dry farmed potatoes, dry farmed tomatoes, avocados, blenheim apricots, five varieties of apples, pears, cherry tomatoes, melons, various vegetable row crops, culinary herbs, and a flower program,