FOOD&WINE fall05

When Jamie Collins quit her job as a social worker in 1997 to become a farmer, she wasn’t thinking about the price of cardboard boxes. She was excited about growing food because it felt like work that matters “in the big scheme of things,” unlike her previous plan of interior decorating. But here she was on a Tuesday morning eight years later, the farmers market just hours away, calling around for a deal on boxes in which to pack her prize-winning organic heirloom tomatoes for sale to Trader Joe’s. Her persistence paid off. She found some for 91 cents, well below the first quote of $1.50.

“That’s a big difference!” she exclaims, widening her light blue eyes like someone who has just heard a scandalous piece of gossip. “Because then you have your clamshells and your labels…” She shakes her head. “I never thought I’d be spending so much on packaging.”

At 32, Collins looks the perfect part of the organic farmer. She’s pretty and strong-looking, prone to smiling and doling out enveloping hugs, talkative and easy in manner. She has two nose rings, prefers sparkly eye shadow and wears her burgundy-colored hair under a cowboy hat. Positioned at a table under a tree, chopping tomatoes for salsa and chatting affably with visitors at Serendipity Farm’s U-Pick stand, she seems like a good-time girl in the middle of good-time day.

But Collins’ groovy exterior hides a wealth of energy, drive and hustle. The persistence that lined up those cheaper boxes is propelling an entire enterprise along the pothole-riddled road that is a typical farming year. This year late rains and unusually cool weather cut the tomato season in half. On the other hand, her produce won eight blue ribbons—including best heirloom tomatoes, chard, peppers and kale—at the Monterey County Fair this year.

Collins spends most of her time working at the farm, and when she’s not working at it she’s thinking about it, even now, at the height of tomato season, when things get busiest just as the body gets weariest. “This time of year you’re beyond exhausted,” she says. “You’re just in the zone.”

All business is hard, but running a small farm is famously one of the hardest.