For more than 37 years, the Gizdich Ranch in Watsonville has been "self serve"…

a farm where "U-Pick" your own berries. The "pickers" describe it as good exercise, good quality…and at a good price! And some pick enough to fill-up their cars for the trip home from the farm.

Customer Cathleen Fout says, "It’s fun. It’s nice to be out in the open air. It’s nice to be able to choose every single berry on your own…so you always, you know, get the best."

Visitors to the Gizdich Ranch can pick boysenberries, raspberries and olallieberries. The "olallieberry" is a relative newcomer to California crops, but it’s becoming more and more popular every growing season.

Nita Gizdich points out, "Olallie is a cross between a black logan and a young berry and it was brought down here in 1950, introduced to us berry growers, from Oregon. We were all boysenberry growers and boy, when we saw the yield off an olallieberry bush, we pulled out those boysenberries and planted olallies."

Nita adds, in the early days, some people weren’t quite sure what to think about the berry called "olallie." But after they tried some, they kept coming back for more.

Vince Gizdich says, "Most of our customers use the olallieberry for their jam-making and people love to take a big bag of them and just put them in the freezer. And as the season progresses, you know around December and January, they might take these out and whip up a nice hot cobbler for a cold winter’s night and it’s a treat."

It’s also a treat to use olallieberries in pies and there are eight bakers at the farm who serve them up hot from the oven. The Gizdich Ranch is an established "family" business and their success is the result of a family effort.

Nita explains, "It’s just wonderful. But if it wasn’t for all of us working hard together, we wouldn’t be where we were today."

For information on touring the "U-Pick" Gizdich Ranch, call (831) 722-1056.