Farm Tours

Perched above Monterey Bay on the UC Santa Cruz campus, the Center's Farm and Alan Chadwick Garden offer thriving examples of organic agriculture and horticulture on both a hand-worked garden scale and medium-sized, tractor-worked farm scale. Whether you're a gardener interested in what plants do well in the Central Coast region, a farmer looking for production information, or you just want to take a walk and enjoy the views, the Farm & Garden have much to offer.

Both the 30-acre Farm and 2-acre Alan Chadwick Garden are open to the public daily from 8 am to 6 pm, with a self-guided tour brochure available at the Farm entrances. You can also download a pdf version of the tour brochure here.

During their tours, visitors can see first-hand how to build fertile soil and control pests, recycle yard and kitchen waste, conserve water, and encourage biodiversity. You'll also learn about the latest research and education projects taking place at the sites.

Tour Schedule

We offer docent-led tours of the farm for groups of five or more people. To request a tour, please fill out this request form.

For directions to the UCSC Farm and Alan Chadwick Garden see our Directions page. For information on upcoming events, including upcoming monthly docent-led tours, see the Events page.

Docents are vital to our tours program. If you're interested in becoming a docent or want to learn about other volunteer opportunities at the Farm & Garden, please contact us at agroecology@ucsc.edu.

School Field Trips

Life Lab, an organization that develops garden-based science and nutrition curricula and educational programming for K-12 students, is based at the UCSC Farm. Life Lab manages the Garden Classroom at the Farm, which serves as a model school garden and training site for students and teachers, and hosts field trips and programs for students year round. To learn more, visit lifelab.org/for-educators/fieldtrips/.