In the 1967 my cousins and I built a tree house in the plum tree and we watched the Disneyland fireworks. We use to play army in the orange groves. Using the oranges as hand grenades and drinking the juice when we were thirsty. I can remember waking up in the morning to fresh strawberries on the kitchen table. Plums picked fresh from the tree. Sunday we would go to my grandmothers house and she had apricot’s, Apples and some other fruits in her yard.

We were surrounded by fruits and vegetables. No matter if we were walking to school or to the store fields and orchards every where. Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm were surrounded by Orchards and fields.

Agriculture is one of the prominent elements of the state’s economy: California leads the nation in the production of fruits, vegetables, wines and nuts. The state’s most valuable crops in 2019 are cannabis, nuts, grapes, cotton, flowers, and oranges. California produces the major share of U.S. domestic wine. Also grown carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and broccoli.

Orange Groves: In the late 1880s, California citrus growers began organizing themselves into cooperatives, with the goal of increasing profits by pooling their risk and increasing their collective bargaining power with jobbers and packers. The economic depression that began in 1893 worsened farmers’ situations, and intensified their desire to self-organize to their own benefit.

In 1893, P.J. Dreher and his son, the “father of the California citrus industry” Edward L. Dreher (1877–1964), formed the Southern California Fruit Exchange in Claremont, a small college town near Los Angeles. It originally represented only growers of oranges: in 1896 lemon growers joined as well.^[3] The exchange soon included growers and groves in Riverside in Riverside County, Pomona and San Dimas in Los Angeles County, and Santa Paula, Saticoy, Fillmore, Rancho Sespe, Bardsdale and Piru in Ventura County; by 1905, the group represented 5,000 members, 45% of the California citrus industry, and renamed itself the California Fruit Growers Exchange. In 1952, it changed its name to Sunkist Growers, Inc.

Strawberry Fields: The strawberry Festival in Garden Grove California was started in 1958. The festival became and has always been a charitable event benefiting local organizations. In the past 50 years over $4.5 million has been donated to hundreds of non-profits.

Avocado Groves: The Hass avocado had one of its first commercial successes at the Model Grocery Store on Colorado Street in Pasadena, California, where chefs working for some of the town’s wealthy residents bought the new cultivar’s big, nutty-tasting fruit for $1 each, a very high price at the time (equivalent to $14 in 2018).

Almond Trees: Almonds arrived in California in the 1700’s when Jesuit missionaries from Spain brought them as food and later planted them in their coastal missions. Eventually, settlers found that the nut grew much better in the inland areas of the state, away from the cool coastal fog. In the past 30 years, California’s almond yield has quadrupled, covering more than half a million acres in the lush San Joaquin, Fresno and Sacramento valleys. Today: Almonds are California‘s top agricultural export and largest tree nut crop in total dollar value and acreage. They also rank as the largest U.S. specialty crop export.

Cannabis: Is leading the agricultural market financially in 2019 with Billions being made yearly by the growers. It’s a cash crop unlike no other. It is now being offered on the stock market.