Cabrillo's Horticulture Department has world class facilities in which to get a strong hands-on educational experience.
Some of the facilities are available for rent. Please contact Cabrillo's Facilities Use and Events Coordinator at (831) 479-6332. The Horticulture faculty do not schedule the facility.
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Nursery and Greenhouse
Nursery Building
The Nursery Building is on the left as you enter the fenced area in the back of the Horticulture Center. It comprises the nursery staff offices and lunch room, herbarium, the store and laboratory Classroom, where students learn hands-on techniques for plant propagation and care.
Laboratory Classroom
The Nursery classroom is an expansive space with stainless steel tables and a concrete floor with drains, a perfect room for learning the arts of nursery production in all its phases. Students use this room to conduct media testing, to practice canning and potting techniques, to measure pH and EC, as well as learn how to identify plant parts.
Hoop Houses
There are five hoop houses near the back of the nursery area. They are used throughout the season to show the sequence of typical crop production. One house is the propagation house, the second is for lining out stock and the other 2 are for hardening off the crop before going outside. They have each been named to honor the contributions of The Westcliff Foundation, Golden State Bulb Growers, Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau and Driscoll Strawberry Associates.
Greenhouse
The large production greenhouse is an 8,000 square foot greenhouse complex named in honor of the Solari family. In the center is the Head House where much of the propagation goes on during the year by our students, staff and volunteers. On either side are the 3,600 square foot greenhouse areas.
One side is dedicated to Controlled Environment Agriculture - hydroponic tomatoes, basil and aquaponic greens. The other side grows Poinsettias in the fall, and lots of other nursery crops in preparation for our spring sale.
Shade Houses
The Nursery Area wouldn't be complete without its shade houses. The Spencer/Rooney North Shade House is the staging area for our CCOF Organic urban vegetable production. The other 2 houses are filled with various crops for sale during the annual Mother's Day sale.
Organic Farm
Our farm was started in 2008 in response to our students.
Our goal is to provide valuable hands-on training and theory in Best Management Practices, which can mean small-scale, larger-scale organic or even conventional farming.
The site was once a large hole in the ground. During construction of the facilities "they" built a large water catchment system (like the one on the other side of the road) but determined they over built the system. So they filled it in with debris, and compacted it down to about 98% compaction, or suitable for building a structure.
Once filled, we started applying cover crops. Within 6 years we were able to grow some decent crops.
Our latest addition (Fall 2013) was the addition of two 75' long high tunnels. One side is inground organic and we planted the Blueberries and Raspberries. A third crop will be rotated seasonally.
Hydroponic and Aquaponic Food Production
Our hydroponic, substrate and aquaponics production systems were in response to our students' requests. Our goal is to provide valuable hands-on training and theory in producing high quality food crops indoors and out. Hydroponics and aquaponics are great ways to teach science and can lead to increased student interests in STEM. We offer a class each semester. Students taking the class harvest produce each week, test water parameters, train the tomatoes, plant basil and lettuce as well as mix fertilizers.
A recent report (2012) indicated that over 1 million acres of food production are under cover around the world. The progression of our system is classic of a small business expanding and finding better ways to do things. It also has expanded so the classes with a 3 hr lab could handle all the student activities. Another goal is happy customers. Almost all of our produce is sold at the Farmers Market on Saturdays.
Our second system moved into a hoop house. We set up a deep raft and NFT system. They worked great, but we quickly learned that this hoop house had very little "control". So we moved across the road to the large greenhouse and now occupy 3600 sqft
Our latest systems include cluster tomatoes in bato buckets producing fruit from Oct to June. You can see them in the top image.
We also have Basil and sometimes lettuce in our NFT system using commercial computers and channels. We have grown microgreens for the college culinary arts program. The interest in Aquaponics came about because students were asking about organic ways of doing hydroponics. So we jumped right in. Aquaponics combines fish, bacteria and plants into a system that converts fish food into edible (or ornamental) food, and plants. Different types of systems are better for different types of crops. We are currently focusing on water based systems. The UVI model uses Tilapia which are not legal here so we are using koi.
Our system is a scaled version of the system developed by the University of the Virgin Islands. This is the industry standard and has been shown to be productive for over 30 years. It is a high fish density system. We currently produce 140-180 heads of lettuce per week. We are growing organic substrate blueberries outdoors in high tunnels donated by Driscolls.
Community Building
As you come up the hill from the campus perimeter road, the first building you see is the Community Building, so designated because its purpose is to provide the greater Santa Cruz residents a welcoming place to enjoy classes, lectures, individual study, group functions as well as a marvelous view of the Monterey Bay to the south. The building houses a spacious lobby, community room, lecture classroom, faculty offices, a learning center/library and site of the future garden store.
Please see above numbers for rental information.
Koppes Community Room
The Koppes Community Room is a large multipurpose room with views of the entry courtyard and Monterey Bay. As a classroom, it comfortably seats seventy students and has overhead computerized projection capabilities, sound system and work boards. It also functions as a meeting room and often provides a space for catered dining events. The room was named in honor of the generous donation by the Koppes family.
Schwab Lecture Classroom
The Schwab Lecture Classroom offers the latest teaching technology to students.
