Our hearts are so incredibly heavy this week. The world is little less bright with the loss of Jay and Kristen Ruskey of Condor Ridge Ranch. Jay and Kristen have been a huge source of inspiration for fruitqueen since day one. Their support, trust, partnership, and friendship has helped us achieve some really incredible fruit dreams. fruitqueen would never have become what it is without them.
Jay began farming in his teens. In 1992, while an undergrad at Cal Poly, he began the work of rejuvenating the derelict cherimoya orchard on his family’s ranch in Goleta, then known as Good Land Organics. In the three decades since, Jay and Kristen implemented a regenerative, layered system of organic farming, intercropping dozens of crops vertically on their steep terrain. We often struggle to describe the farm, partly because there is so much happening, and partly because we’ve never seen another farm quite like it. From a ways away, the farm feels wild, like a fruit-heavy jungle. But as you scramble through it, and with Jay as a guide, intention reveals itself at every turn. Trees, vines, and shrubs are strategically planted and cared for to provide shade, wind break, support, and nutrition to one another – the farm a larger organism itself. It is beautiful. It is radical.
To visit now and see the extraordinary range of fruit growing there, you instantly recognize that Jay Ruskey was not your average farmer. He was creative, curious, and unafraid to take risks. Jay’s passion, drive, and vision helped shape the agricultural landscape in California today. While working with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources advisors to explore the feasibility of longan and lychee cultivation, the idea of growing coffee emerged. Jay began experimenting with coffee plants interplanted among the avocado trees. In 2017, Jay and Kristen founded Frinj Coffee. After two decades of research, experimentation, and trials, more than 70 farms across Southern California now grow coffee using Jay’s methods and systems.
From what I witnessed, Jay approached growing coffee the same way he approached fruit — with patience, curiosity, and deep care. He was, first and foremost, a fruit grower. On sloped terrain at 600 feet elevation, with views of the Pacific Ocean in the distance, Jay and Kristen cultivated avocados, cherimoyas, dragon fruit, passion fruit, ice cream beans, caviar limes, tamarillo, granadilla, longan, bananas, mangos, and so much more. After years of working together and numerous visits to the farm, Jay would still regularly surprise us, including with our order a small harvest of a fruit I didn’t know he grew. In recent years, as their vision expanded, by necessity Jay became the coffee guy. To know Jay the fruit nerd felt like a window into a past life.
Jay and Kristen intentionally built a farm with year-round harvests, and for the past few years, we’ve been honored to bring you their fruit through all four seasons. It always felt like a privilege, and now we know it was. Jay and Kristen were the only farmers we worked with year-round, which made this relationship all the more special.
For many of you, your first experience tasting a cherimoya, an ice cream bean, or fresh passion fruit may have been from Condor Ridge. So many unforgettable fruit experiences can be attributed to Jay and Kristen Ruskey. Together, they expanded what people thought could be grown in California. I’ll miss talking fruit with Jay every week, and I’ll especially miss his patient chuckle whenever I asked if he’d grow more bananas for us.
We feel this loss deeply. We’re holding their family, friends, and community close to our hearts. In time, we hope to continue to honor and celebrate the legacy and impact they leave behind. Jay and Kristen are survived by their three children: their daughter Kasurina, 19, and their sons, Aiden and Sean, 16.
A GoFundMe has been created to help with funeral costs, memorial arrangements, and to alleviate immediate financial pressure.
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Photo credit: Macduff Everton
