A small farm under old mango trees.

Baja California Sur is dry country. Most of what gets eaten in Los Cabos arrives from somewhere else — up the peninsula, across the water, or from further away than that. By the time it reaches a kitchen here it has been travelling for days.

Orchard started from a simple objection to that. There is a stand of eighty-year-old mango trees on the edge of San José del Cabo, and underneath them the air moves and the ground stays in shade. It is a good place to keep birds. So we do.

What we actually do

We raise laying hens and poultry outdoors under those trees. We formulate and mill our own feed on the farm rather than buying it in — corn, wheat bran, soybean meal and scratch grains, with ginger, turmeric, garlic, onion and oregano — because it is the one input that changes everything downstream and we would rather control it. No hormones are added, and nothing artificial goes into the mix.

Eggs are collected by hand every morning, sorted, packed and delivered across Los Cabos by us. The shells come out brown, cream, freckled and pale blue-green depending on the bird. We do not sort that out. It is the most honest thing about the product.

On the word "organic"

This site used to describe Orchard as organic. We have taken that word off it. We do not hold organic certification, and using the word without it is a claim we cannot stand behind — so we have replaced it with the things we can: where the birds live, what they eat, who makes their feed, and how quickly the eggs reach you.

If those things matter to you, they are all verifiable. You can come and check.

Why the farm is open

Most children in Los Cabos have never seen a laying hen. Most adults have not either. We started running visits because people kept asking, and it turned into one of the more worthwhile things the farm does — school groups, families, birthday mornings, chefs who want to see the flock before they buy from it.

A farm you can walk onto is a different kind of supplier. It is harder to run that way, and it is the whole point.

Where we are going

More birds, more colours in the carton, and more kitchens in Los Cabos serving eggs that were under a mango tree earlier the same week. We would also like more properties producing on their own land, with our help — the short chain works better the more of it there is.