SIDEYARD FARMER SPOTLIGHT: Matt Buckmaster, Morning Star Sideyard Farm
At Sideyard, we’re proud to work with farmers we know as friends and feel like family – and our ‘sideyard’ farm partners are the real deal! They’re growing the good stuff, taking care of the land, and supporting our regional food system in Southern California.
We’re equally proud to extend the short, fleeting seasons of fruits like mulberries with our fruit-infused vinegars.
Nestled in a neighborhood community at the base of the foothills of Santa Barbara County, Morning Star Sideyard Farm is an ecological oasis of fruit trees and homegrown gardening.
Owned by our friend and farmer, Matt Buckmaster, and lovingly named after Matt’s late mother-in-law, Morning Star Sideyard Farm is located in Goleta, California and has one mulberry tree that explodes with fruit every summer.
This summer season, back in mid-June, we harvested mulberries by hand from Morning Star. When it came time, the fruit on Matt’s tree was bursting with flavor and ripe for the picking. We couldn’t be more excited about using peak season berries from Matt’s abundant sideyard tree - that’s how we got our start, after all: using produce from fruit trees in our own sideyard at home.
We proudly source an abundance of mulberries from Morning Star Sideyard Farm. We’ve known and worked with Matt Buckmaster for as long as we’ve been in business, and we can’t stay away. He grows some of the best mulberries we’ve ever tasted (thanks to organic farming practices and climate, among many more factors).
We can’t pass up an occasion to sing Matt Buckmaster’s praises. Thank you, Matt, for supporting our small business and doing the Sideyard dance with us! We’re grateful for your friendship and partnership. The future is abundant, thanks to smallholder farmers like Matt Buckmaster. Keep growing the good stuff!!!
In addition to ‘sideyard’ farming and gardening, Matt Buckmaster owns the perennially popular and beloved by home gardeners institution known as Island Seed and Feed, specializing in all things organic. Matt also serves on the board of the Center for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens Farm.
Thank you, Matt, for sharing your wisdom, experience, stories and mulberry bounty with us at Sideyard. Your combined passions for seasonal fruit, regional loot, outdoor adventure, sustainability and an active lifestyle continues to inspire us!
Photo credit: Feast your eyes on these beautiful photos, by Nathan Khalsa. Among his many talents, Nathan is our friend, photographer and community village member.
