Home Care In Cardiff, CA

The new farmers market will have an array of food products and prepared food, along with a curated group of craft vendors and local makers.

Times of San Diego, News Partner

By Editor, Times of San Diego

March 2, 2023

This Saturday, the Cardiff 101 Mainstreet Association begins hosting a weekly Farmers Market at the Mira Costa College San Elijo Campus from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

At the inaugural market, there will be live music from the Encinitas-based Violin Shop and the first 150 guests will receive a free Cardiff Farmers Market tote bag with goodies from local businesses inside.

Cardiff Farmers Market is a Certified California Farmers Market, featuring produce sold by local farmers. The new farmers market also will have an array of food products and prepared food, along with a curated group of craft vendors and local makers.

Find out what's happening in San Diegowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Confirmed vendors include Mooski Snacks, Wonderland Farm, MP Family Farm, Rodney Kawano Farm, Sea Greens Microgreens, Crescent Meat, Fishbone Fish, Cardiff Tiny Farm, Emmy Lou Jewelry and more.

Alison Wielechowski, executive director of Cardiff 101 Mainstreet called the new venue “a local destination farmers’ market.”

“It’s a perfect and convenient weekend destination for community, food, and fun, and an awesome addition to the best that Cardiff-by-the-Sea has to offer,” she said.

Located across from the San Elijo Lagoon, the market will serve Olivenhain, Encinitas, Solana Beach and Rancho Santa Fe, with access off Interstate 5 at Manchester Avenue and parking for more than 850 vehicles.

The Cardiff Farmers Market accepts EBT payments and will be fully ADA compliant.

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A piece of coastal North County’s history from the early 20th century will be preserved, thanks to an alert citizen, some conscientious construction workers, and the cooperation of regional authorities.

In conjunction with the placement of a second track along the railroad that runs along California’s coast, the San Diego Association of Governments is overseeing the installation of a segment of the corridor’s regional biking and hiking trail in Encinitas’ Cardiff-by-the-Sea community.

Encinitas resident Ron Dodge, a student of the region’s railroad history, has been observing the rail trail project’s progress with particular attention to its path through the site of the old Cardiff train station.

The depot, which opened in 1913, and halted operations in 1921, was situated along the east side of the tracks just north of what today is the intersection of Chesterfield Drive and San Elijo Avenue.

On June 30, Dodge said, he observed that workers had uncovered a concrete slab at the site, which he believed was a remnant of the old station. He immediately contacted city officials, including Councilman Tony Kranz, who is also a railroad buff, and Mayor Catherine Blakespear, to get their help in verifying the discovery.

“I was pretty sure, but I was hedging my bet until I talked with Catherine and Tony,” Dodge said in an interview along with Blakespear at the site last week. “I wanted to obtain some additional details because you never can be too sure. It’s very exciting to uncover an artifact from the past.”

Blakespear is the city’s representative on the board of directors for the government association, and she worked with administrators there on preserving the slab.

Once its significance was confirmed, association administrators agreed to redesign and reroute the trail so the remnant of the station can be preserved.

“They were willing to put together a different design to preserve this, and I’m really grateful for that,” Blakespear said.

Fortunately, Blakespear said, the workers clearing the site left the concrete structure undisturbed.

“They thought this might be important, so they cleared it off without destroying it,” she said. “We have very few opportunities to preserve our history due to the fact that a lot of them have been torn down. For that reason, it’s important to preserve these gems.”

Adding to the site’s significance, Blakespear said, is its presence across the street from one of the area’s oldest remaining structures, the Mercantile building, which now is occupied by the Patagonia retail shop. An old black and white photo shows both the station and the Mercantile, which then housed a hotel, market and post office.

“So standing here, you can visualize what it was like to be here in 1913,” she said of the slab’s location. “It’s power is its place.”

Said Dodge: “It’s not exactly like the Rosetta Stone that can be moved from place to place.”

The Cardiff station was a later addition on the rail line originally established as the California Southern Railroad when it was built in the early 1880s, Dodge said.

The railroad ran between National City and a transcontinental line in San Bernardino County on a route that went through Fallbrook, the Santa Margarita River canyon, Temecula, Elsinore, Perris and Riverside.

The wooden depot that served Encinitas was built in 1887. The Cardiff station was closed after the train tracks for the inland route were wiped out by flooding in the Temecula Valley, Dodge said, and it was not rebuilt. The building was torn down in 1943, through apparently not completely removed.

A publication titled, “Santa Fe Coast Lines Depots, Los Angeles Division,” produced in 1992 and shared by Dodge, offered this description of the Cardiff station:

“Architect Del W. Harris of San Diego penned the plans for the unique Mission style depot at Cardiff. The four-room structure was built on a concrete foundation with a cement floor, plastered exterior and tile roof.”

Dodge and Blakespear hope the locale with the remaining slab can be developed with informational displays explaining the history and role of the Cardiff station.

“It sort of looks inauspicious, but when you hear the story of it, it comes to life,” Dodge said.

It took a guy coming from Cardiff, Wales, to identify the 1911 home of Cardiff by the Sea’s founder, J. Frank Cullen.

Mark Gubb, from the Queen’s Cardiff, was visiting Cardiff by the Sea to scout out a future possible art project between the two towns. While meeting with some community historians last week, including Irene Kratzer, he mentioned he had tried to book the Cullen House for his Cardiff stay.

“The Cullen House?” Kratzer asked. Yes, indeed, the house still existed at the northwest corner of Oxford Avenue and Norfolk Drive. Gubb had found it listed on a British rental reservation website.

“Our jaws dropped,” said Kratzer. “We’ve all seen the 1911 pictures of his house but always thought it was built on San Elijo Avenue, appearing to be pictured close to the ocean. We assumed it was long gone.” (San Elijo Avenue is the first street overlooking the beach.)

“It's obvious now,” Kratzer said. At the time there was nothing built between the home and the ocean, so it looked like it was right on the bluff. The house is actually five blocks up the hill.

Perry Herst of Scottsdale, Arizona, purchased the house in 2013 and rents it as a vacation home. It was his local realtor, Mark Bobo, who told him about the history of the house.

“The home was apparently the original model home for Frank Cullen's development of Cardiff by the Sea. It was also his home,” said Herst.

A recent photo of Cullen's house (now a rental)

The house has a small addition and was remodeled in the late 1960s. Herst has modernized it and restored its beach-cottage charm. In a nod to history, he has also planted passion fruit on the property: in the 1930s, Cardiff was poised to become the passion fruit capital of the U.S. But, a 1937 freeze wiped out the crop.

J. Frank Cullen founded the SoCal Cardiff, with the U.S. Post Office officially recognizing the name, including the "by-the-Sea" addition, in 1911. It was Cullen’s wife, Esther, who was from the across-the-pond Cardiff. She insisted her husband name the streets after British towns, rather than give them Spanish names. Thus, the town was subdivided with street names of Birmingham, Liverpool, Chesterfield, and 18 other British place names.

Mr. Cullen won one name battle with his wife — San Elijo Avenue, the town’s main drag paralleling Coast Highway 101.

Herst said after the summer season, the next time he’s in the area, he will invite local historians to view the inside of the home.

Historical footnote: Kratzer, in 1988, fought and won battles with Caltrans and Rand McNally mapmakers over the removal of the town’s name upon the 1986 incorporation within the City of Encinitas. Kratzer pointed out Cardiff by the Sea has its own zip code, state beach, school, and sewer districts, and that the town did not dissolve upon incorporation.

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Ryan Cardiff has donned many hats at California, from student-athlete to stringer-reporter and more, and that's just in his first year in Berkeley.

A product of nearby Lafayette, California, Cardiff is a freshman on the Cal men's tennis team, which is preparing to start the NCAA tournament on Friday at the Hellman Tennis Complex. The Golden Bears will face Tennessee Tech at 1 p.m. in Friday's first round, after the Northwestern-Utah State match that's scheduled to begin at 10 a.m.

Cardiff's older brother, Dan, also plays tennis, with both playing at Acalanes High School. The two broke a lot of strings as kids, and at some point their father had them learn the skill to avoid paying others to do the job.

"At first we were just stringing for ourselves," Ryan Cardiff said, "and then we started stringing for our high school team and for our dad's friends at our country club, and then we started stringing for our friends. That's how it started."

Now a veteran at the task, the young Bear can string a racket in 20 minutes, which is a definite improvement from the first racket he worked on.

"It took me three hours," he laughed. "I kept getting frustrated and kept on messing up; it wasn't good. The next one was a lot quicker, maybe an hour, and I kept getting quicker with the infinite amount of rackets I've worked on."

The Cardiff brothers began coaching at the Cal summer camps in Berkeley, where the Bears' coaches took notice of their stringing skills. While Dan eventually went to play at Cal Poly, Ryan stayed in the east bay to join Cal.

The youthful – and youthful-looking – Bear won his first collegiate singles and doubles matches in the fall. But playing time is challenging to come by on an experienced squad like Cal's, particularly in the spring's dual-match season. Cardiff has nevertheless found a way to contribute to the team in various ways, including by stringing his team's rackets.

"Having this big role makes me feel like I'm helping the team a lot more than if I wasn't stringing the rackets," said Cardiff, who also helps direct the team's social media. "It make me more responsible."

"Ryan is quite an amazing young man," Cal head coach Peter Wright said. "Most people underestimate him right from the start because of his boyish looks and his disarming smile. Ryan is certainly gentle, kind and thoughtful, but he also is fiercely competitive, which surprises many. His list of accomplishments is long and two words you wouldn't use to describe him are sloppy and lazy. He's a pleasure to be around, and he's helped our team on so many levels."

When he isn't stringing or playing at Hellman, Cardiff keeps busy in the classroom and elsewhere on campus.

He wants to major in business administration and hopes to apply to the Haas School of Business in November. Cardiff also lists economics and political economy as potential majors should business not work out.

In his first semester as a collegian, Cardiff and freshman teammate Nico Brightbill started working for CalTV, the student-run organization that gives students the chance to develop their skills in many aspects of TV production. One of their dorm's resident assistants worked at CalTV, and when they ran into him at a CalTV table in Sproul Plaza, their interest was piqued.

Cardiff describes himself as shy but makes a point to get out of his comfort zone when he can, which he's done at CalTV by appearing on front of the camera. This semester, Cardiff has worked on two videos for CalTV – to wrap up a men's basketball game at Haas Pavilion and to interview rugby star Russell Webb at Witter Rugby Field.

During the winter break, Cardiff also interned for the Cal Athletics Fund – the fundraising arm of the athletic department – making a flyer for men's gymnastics and speaking to donors.

"It was pretty cool to see a different end of the spectrum of the athletic department," said Cardiff, who would also enjoy working in fan experience and marketing at Cal.

"Ryan has always wanted to go the extra mile, not just in tennis, but in whatever he does," Brightbill said. "He's always been involved in multiple things and is a very well-rounded kid."

After graduating with a business or econ degree, Cardiff hopes that his experiences in athletics and off the court will lead to a job in the front office of a professional sports team. His dream job? The Russell Westbrook fan would love to work for the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder.

"One of the things I love about being in college is the opportunity to build my resume, especially at a place like Cal where there are so many opportunities," Cardiff said. "Along the way, I've met a lot of cool people, and it's been pretty fun."

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CARDIFF, Calif. — A new weekly farmers market opened Saturday in Cardiff, creating more opportunities for people to shop locally as local farmers, vendors and crafters sell their items.

The new farmers market features more than 70 vendors that sell locally grown fruits, vegetables, food vendors, locally-made crafts, live music and more.

There was a line wrapped around, awaiting Saturday’s grand opening.

“The goal that we have in Cardiff is to shop local and to keep farmers farming,” said Alison Wielechowski, executive director at Cardiff 101 Main Street Association.

“You look around and you see all these people and you see how much there’s a desire to have a farmers market here in Cardiff,” Catherine Blackespear, a California state senator, Cardiff resident and former Encinitas mayor who was at the grand opening celebration Saturday.

This new weekly farmers market was a project nearly three years in the making. Wielechowski had the idea to start it in 2020, and after a pandemic break in planning, awaiting permits and leases, her idea has come to fruition.

“It’s so wonderful to see this community come together, for us to support local, to shop local and just to create (a) community in a place that didn’t have it before.”

Alex Cummings is the owner of Seas Greens, a Vista farm that grows microgreens, and is excited to have a farmers market so close. He is among the dozens of vendors that will be at this farmers market weekly.

“The whole idea is being a part of the community, is meeting your farmer, meeting your neighbor, getting out and having a face-to-face, being able to see the food,” Cummings said. “Being that I’m the actual farmer, being here and being a part of the community, that’s what it’s all about, we are supporting each other in our own community.”

“I know we all have our favorite grocery stores that we go to regularly but this is a great change of pace and maybe you’ll make it a habit to come by here every weekend,” said Encinitas Mayor Tony Kranz.

The farmers market will be open every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Mira Costa College’s San Elijo Campus in Cardiff.