Healthy living starts with knowing where your food comes from and there is a rapidly increasing interest in finding local sources of fresh food whether purchasing or growing your own home garden and orchard. In the San Joaquin Valley and surrounding area of California, there are many excellent choices. At Intermountain, we can barely keep up with growing vegetable starts for spring and fall gardeners and local foothill farmers.  Many customers have invested time and energy into building raised beds with gopher wire exclusion underneath, and producing wonderful harvests of fresh, home-grown vegetables year-round. We ask our customers to please continue to give us feedback on what varieties of tomatoes, peppers etc. are working best. This spring, the nursery has a large selection of bareroot fruit trees and now that some rain has come, 2012 will be a good year to start or increase your backyard orchards.  We also have greatly increased the varieties of seed we will be stocking. It is a lot of work to be successful with growing food on your land, but the rewards are worth it. Please consult with our knowledgeable staff for guidance. Those of you who do not have the time or energy to grow your own can choose from a variety of local sources for fresh food year-round.  There is produce available from Stella Luna Farm in Auberry, Kern Family Farm in North Fork, MOA Association in Clovis and TD Willey Farms in Madera, Fresno & Oakhurst. Fresh eggs can be purchased at Auberry Feed. There is a local source of grass fed beef: Sierra Lands Beef, through the Sierra Foothill Conservancy in Tollhouse. Mar Val Market in Prather has local produce and a nice selection of organic foods & dairy. Also, we are growing and providing seasonal vegetable starts for the Community Food Bank through the Lutheran Church. Don’t forget to donate un-needed household goods and clothing to MountainWear, our local free community clothing closet in Tollhouse. Bartering with friends for goods and services makes sense these days. A community can survive better through leaner times if folks work together.                                                                                         Bonnie Bladen & Raymond Laclergue

2011 notes This past year we have noticed many healthy trends in the local foothill, mountain and valley communities. More folks are tearing out their front lawns and putting in low water use gardens or food-growing gardens. It seems people want to make better use of their outdoor spaces and get something back from hard work and water consumption. Also, folks are interested in becoming more ecologically and economically in tune with the times. There is definitely an interest in more of a connection with the ground that surrounds our homes, the health of the soil and helping to create habitat for beneficial insects and pollinators. We are offering many classes again this year to help with these efforts: growing vegetables and fruit, preserving what you grow, landscaping with low water use plants in the lower and higher elevations. We live in a beautifully rich area at the base of the Sierras, near the finest agricultural land in the world. We have sunny winter days, long growing seasons, wildlife viewing and recreational opportunities like walking, biking, hiking, kayaking, camping, swimming, skiing, riding horses or just sitting and enjoying. The local land trust, Sierra Foothill Conservancy, offers many local hikes of interest. The Central Sierra Historical Society offers tours, outings and a museum. We are also lucky to have many cultural opportunities in the area. The Friends of the Auberry Library (FOAL) offers tours and free concerts at the library along with music workshops for our students in school. The drama class at Sierra High offers professional presentations.  Here at the nursery, we offer classes on Native American traditional craft, working with clay or gourds, woodworking, etc. We also offer community music concerts with potlucks throughout the summer. Come on outside and enjoy the beauty that surrounds us all and the many diverse activities that are locally available!  Connect with friends and neighbors, bring young and old alike and celebrate our great community.

2010 notes

This year marks the 30th Anniversary of Intermountain Nursery and we want to take this opportunity to thank all the people who have worked here, and all of our customers who have supported this business! Our efforts have always been to offer low water use and Native plants, vegetable starts without chemical inputs or toxic pesticides, gardening supplies for organic home gardeners and information on fire resistant landscapes.

               In the spring of 2009, a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks nested in the Cottonwood tree right in the middle of the retail part of the nursery.   Cat Krosschell, the raptor expert, had told a nursery class that you could tell when the eggs hatched by looking on the ground for droppings. The days old chicks have the instinct to hang their rear ends over the edge of the nest and deposit droppings to the ground.  Our grandson, Paul came running in one day after school, declaring ‘There’s poop on the ground under the nest! The eggs have hatched!’ Much to the delight of everyone who came into the nursery, the parent hawks brought in voles, mice, snakes & lizards to the noisy, growing chicks. Three chicks successfully fledged from the nest in late spring. It looks like the parents are back again this year, this time in a Black Walnut tree above the picnic tables. 

Also, in spring of ‘09, we had a solitary visitor, a Great Blue Heron, each morning in the field we have gardened in for years. On the ground, moving very slowly, silently, stalking, this giant, almost pre-historic looking bird (living in our midst) was skewering and downing pocket gophers out of our gardens!  

We have always considered ourselves to be foremost, stewards of this land at the convergence of Big Sandy and Little Sandy Creeks. There are deep, rich, alluvial soils here and our water is from a 28ft. deep well with a solar pump system installed by our friend, Don Loweburg of Offline Solar, North Fork. Temperatures here are cool compared to the surrounding area. This is a great place to grow plants. 

Native people gathered and lived right here for centuries. There are numerous sites and sacred rocks throughout the nursery grounds. We try to observe and learn from this place and hope that our time here and our use of this ground has been guided out of a respect for the earth.     

For those of you who plan to GROW FOOD this year, we would like to help ensure success by

offering information, plants, trees and shrubs that are proven performers in this area. 

Intermountain Nursery, founded in 1980 by present owner Raymond Laclergue, has grown

vegetable starts and offered fruit & nut trees every year since, for 29 years! In that time, we have

learned a few things about varieties that thrive in these foothills and mountains and we are eager

to share what we’ve learned. Seasonally, we carry a large variety of fruit & nut trees, vegetable

starts and seed. Included are heirloom and tried & true varieties of lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, chard,

 cauliflower, onions, chilis, tomatoes, peppers, summer & winter squash, eggplant, certified seed potatoes,

 herbs and more. Our vegetable starts are grown without herbicides or pesticides. We stock figs, peaches,

 pears, apples, cherries, plums, walnuts, almonds, pomegranates, jujubes, apricots, persimmons, berries,

 grapes, rhubarb, heat resistant blueberries, etc. Depending on your elevation and other important aspects

 of your site, we will be glad to discuss with you the best times to plant, the right amendments to use as

 well as fertilizers, mulches, pest barriers, non-toxic sprays and watering schedules to help to ensure

 success in your garden. The nursery offers classes on fruit tree care, vegetable gardening, compost

 making, fall gardens and gopher control. We can all be more self sufficient and lower our costs by

 providing our families with the freshest, most delicious produce possible, grown in our own gardens.

 Additionally, think about using appropriate native, fire resistant and drought tolerant garden plants for

 foundation planting and landscaping in your yard and free up precious water for growing your own

 food. Here’s to Gardening!

Intermountain Nursery 30443 N. Auberry Rd. Prather, CA 93651-9600

559-855-3113 Fax: 559-855-8809