Live Oak Farms is certified organic and is located on 20 acres just outside Rumsey in the fertile Capay Valley. Juan Berrelleza purchased the farm in 2004 after 10 years as an employee of Full Belly Farms and after a brief partnership with Celso Jacobo from Winter Creek Gardens.
In the course of a year, Juan will harvest approximately thirty different vegetables including salad greens, mustard, garlic, squash, carrots, cabbage, tomatoes, corn, green beans and peppers. In addition, they pick walnuts in the fall...typically sometime between September and November. The walnuts are cracked in Rumsey and then bagged for sale .
Live Oak also has some 200 olive trees that were planted ten years ago. The olives are picked twice yearly and trucked to Sonoma for pressing. The resulting virgin olive oil is bottled on the farm in Rumsey with a net production of about fifty-five gallons per year.
Juan has just one full-time employee. During peak times, it's not unusual for him to work 14 hour days. His wife, Nina, handles all the office work, but also is kept busy caring for their two small children. He sells at only two markets, the Grand Lake year round and one in Sacramento in the summer. At the Grand Lake Market, Edgar Jacobo is his young, but capable assistant.