Central Coast Greenhouse Growers

The Nipomo Mesa is home to quite a few wholesale nurseries and commercial greenhouse growers. Nipomo's mild climate, relatively inexpensive acreage and close proximity to US Highway 101 provide the perfect environment for greenhouse grower operations. Once a year the Central Coast Greenhouse Growers Association members open their doors to the general public for free tours and retail sales. A portion of the proceeds from all plant sales on the day of the open house go to benefit local agriculture students through scholarships. Visitors are able to tour greenhouses, view floral displays, purchase products and learn plant care and handling practices. Also, the Nipomo Rotary club throws a Santa Maria Style Barbecue complete with tri-tip sandwiches, chips and soda for a very reasonable fee.

This year we hit the open house trail with a short list of must-have perennials. There were 13 growers participating in this year's open house. Of course, as we ventured from grower to grower, our "short" list grew as we stumbled upon bargain after bargain which we just couldn't pass up. We almost had to run home for another pickup truck but we did manage to squeeze all our new "buds" into our existing vehicle.

Here's the list of this year's participants: Hesse Horticulture, Ball Floraplant, Ball Tagawa Growers, Eufloria Flowers, Excel Roses, Pacific Sun Growers, Koch California LTD, Ocean Breeze, Seaglass Nursery, All Seasons Flowers, Clearwater Nursery, Greenheart Farms and Native Sons Wholesale Nursery.

Central Coast Bike Adventures

If you're a cyclist, you may want to bring your wheels along when you visit the Central Coast. We've got plenty of scenic back roads offering everything from challenging hills to easy and flat tours. The Central Coast hosts several world-class bike teams every Spring when they train here in preparation for their upcoming competitions. In addition, the Amgen Tour of California has passed through the Central Coast each year so our roads and hospitality are becoming well known amongst cyclists world-wide.

Rick Sweet's Central Coast Cycling website is a handy resouce for bicycling around the Santa Maria valley. Rick's site provides info on local rides, routes with elevation plots and topographic maps, lots of photos, a comprehensive event calendar, bike shop pit stops, and several road, mountain and pleasure rides.

We also stumbled upon another site the other day which combines the technology of Google maps with some very creative programming. You can design your own bike route on the Velo Routes website simply by inputting the geographical area you're interested in and then clicking away on the resulting Google map to plot your course. The site will track in your choice of miles or kilometers and provide an elevation chart for the resulting route. Of course, the site is pretty handy for runners, hikers and walkers too! Here's a link which will take you directly to a map of the Santa Maria region.