Organic Options at Dublin's Farmers Market

Residents planning to attend  at will be able to shop from more than 40 booths full of fresh flowers, baked goods, produce and more.

One of those booths will be occupied by Terra Bella Family Farm on Foothill Road in Pleasanton.

Shawn Seufert, who runs Terra Bella Farms, believes his 70 chickens eat better than a lot of humans do.

That's because his poultry eat buckets of trimmings from the organic farm acres and at the Sunol AgPark. As a result, they get fresh, nutritious food, free of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.

Food that will now be available to residents at the Dublin Farmers Market for the first time this Thursday.  

Terra Bella also sells to Wente Vineyards and other local restaurants and at half a dozen other farmers' markets.

Seufert comes across as laid-back, but behind that relaxed demeanor lies a constantly working brain. Family farming isn't for the uncommitted. Seufert was attending the University of California-Santa Cruz and planning to become a teacher when he joined the farm apprenticeship program at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. 

Six intensive months later, he knew farming was for him.

"I was an insect trapper for Alameda County when I met the owner of this land. It had been lying fallow for 40 years," he said of how he came to Pleasanton.

The land used to be part of the Hearst estate, where George and Phoebe Apperson Hearst built their hunting lodge. He and his wife, Beth – who provides the book-keeping and runs the business end of the enterprise -- now lease five acres and live there with their young son, Oliver. 

The fact that no conventional farming had taken place on the land made it easier for the Seuferts to qualify for organic certification, which requires the land to be free of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides for at least three years.

Seufert sees advantages to farming in Pleasanton. Farmers who operate right next to residential areas sometimes have to deal with neighbors' complaints about noisy roosters, flies and other side effects of farming. Seufert, whose operation abuts the Castlewood Country Club, said he's had no problems at all. 

Farm manager Joe Sunderland, a native of Kansas, came to farming via massage therapy school in Hawaii.

"I enjoy eating really great food," he said while taking a break on a sunny day at the Sunol AgPark, four miles down the road. "To know where your food comes from, you've got to be the farmer."

Terra Bella is one of four operations renting from SAGE (Sustainable Agriculture Education), which in turn leases 18 acres near the Sunol Water Temple from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. 

People who seek out locally grown organic produce, Sunderland said, are people who want to avoid food contaminated by coliform bacteria or salmonella. Seufert explained what a visitor will see on an organic farm that wouldn't be seen on a conventional farm.

"Here you see weeds," he said. "You don't see them on a conventional farm because they've been sprayed with poisons... You see flowers on an organic farm, it's part of biodiversity."

He pointed out the blue flowers of borage, which attracts bees and beneficial insects, is edible and is also good for composting. "You see living things here: birds, bees and butterflies. It's a balanced ecosystem. You see more hand weeding here. Labor costs are higher here, vs. chemicals.

Standing among the tall hollyhocks that catch the attention of drivers on Foothill Road, Seufert pointed to their bug-eaten leaves to demonstrate how the old-fashioned perennials contribute more than showy blossoms to the farm. 

"Bugs eat the hollyhocks instead of our cilantro and tomatoes," he said.

Click here to see the seasonal crop list available at Terra Bella.

For more information about other vendors at Thursday's Farmers Market, click .

- Erika Conner contributed to this article.