Reviews for: Da-Le Ranch

I've been a regular farmer's market goer (little Italy and hillcrest) since 2020 and Da Le Ranch is one of my favorite places to shop from. What can I say, I am constantly blown away by their exceptional quality and customer service. The owners/team are always friendly, knowledgeable, and genuinely passionate about their products. They go above and beyond with their customers service: they take their time to answer questions and make personalized recommendations. Every time I cook with Da Le Ranch's meat, my family dinners become special occasions. And their eggs? The perfect day to start my day - scrambled, fried, poached, or boiled, they always deliver. However, what truly sets Da Le Ranch apart from other businesses is their commitment to building meaningful relationships with customers. They remember names, faces, and preferences, making every interaction feel like visiting old friends.

We have been purchasing from Da-Le Ranch for three years. If we don't make it to the Farmer's Market in time and end up buying non-organic non-free roaming meat, we can taste the difference. The Da-Le products have less fat, more meat and definitely better tasting. We highly recommend them...you will taste and see the difference.

Great farm, great tour, great worms. Thanks Dave for all the wonderful information on recycling. Our worms are very happy.

I have been blessed to visit Da-Le Ranch on several occasions and have never left there dissapointed. Dave & Leslie are generous and knowledgeable in all aspects of the business they run and show you their hearts by the way they treat you.

I use to buy from where ever I got the best deal. After just a few months of eating mostly Da-Le Ranch meat, my doctor was surprised to see my cholesterol drop from 169 down to 149 and my triglycerides have dropped from 295 to 225. That is from LEAN meat!!! Da-Le Ranch meats are fresh, lean and the tastiest I have ever eaten. My husband will not eat any pork that isn't from Da-Le Ranch.

The rabbits, chickens, pigs and even the beef are so tender and flavorful I can't do them justice with words. Just taste them at one of the markets Dave sells at and you will KNOW they are oh, so good!!!

Keep up the great job you are doing in raising wholesome, happy meats for our consumption!!

I have been purchasing meats from Da-Le Ranch for almost a month now. My family and I have been very satisfied with the quality of the meats. Having been a former organic market meat fan, I can honestly say that I have been much happier with Da-Le's selection & price. Dave, who is always full of great information, informed me that the pork roast I purchased would need to be tenderized & marinated. I wanted to share this great recipe I used. It is very easy and most importantly, delicious!

TENDERIZE with McCormick Meat Tenderizer (I rubbed the tenderizer all over the roast). I then took small slices of garlic & fresh ginger, rolled them in the tenderizer and inserted them into puncture holes all over the roast.

MARINADE (combine all ingredients to make aprox 4 cups)

1 large white onion -- minced

1 cup fresh lemon juice

1 cup seasame oil

8 tablespoons light soy sauce

8 cloves garlic -- crushed

4 tablespoons grated fresh ginger

8 tablespoons honey

8 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley (I used fresh pineapple sage)

I marinaded the meat for two days makeing sure I flipped the meat for full marinade coverage.

I chose to smoke the pork roast, however, at this point, roasting or grilling would work as well. We smoked it at 250 degrees until the meat reached 145. We also use mesquite chips for flavoring (adding chips 2 more times). The roast came out AMAZING! It was very flavorful & super moist. I placed another order for more.

Also, if you love chicken, Dave has whole chickens fresh or frozen. It is the best chicken I have ever had.

We were so impressed when we visited Dave's farm for a tour. What an honest, hardworking couple! Thank you Dave for all of the information on composting, gardening, worms, meat, etc.-as someone who raised pigs growing up I can tell that he takes pride in the animals he raises and gives the upmost care to the products that he sells. Thanks Dave for the great tour and information! We appreciate it!

Excellent tour! We learned so much! Dave is very knowledgeable and good with kids. They are great at giving the visitors a real hands on experience. We look forward to visiting again.

We were led to Da-Le Ranch's website through Local Harvest, and we will always be ever so thankful that we choose to contact them to purchase our red worms. Not only did we get a beautiful bag of healthy wigglers and a very informative brochure explaining how to care for them and get the most out of keeping a worm bin, we gained a life-long mentor in worm farming from Dave. Dave is fantastic! He answered email after email of questions that I had with clear and detailed answers. He was attentive to going the 'extra mile' to make sure that his customers were satisfied, informed, and happy, with happy and healthy worms!

Thank you, Dave!

I had been searching for grass-fed beef for quite awhile. Dave was kind enough to explain in detail his farm and butchering process. The pork we bought is excellent, and the grass-fed beef is delicious.

We will definitely purchase more and would highly recommend Da-Le Ranch to others.

WOW WOW WOW! Sincere, informative, and obviously passionate about what he is doing. Gotta love that. Dave you are awesome. You answered every question that I had, ones that I didn't even think of as well! Considering the information we got on our visit, the worms were a hell of a deal! What a great experience to meet you and see the farm, I can't wait to get my son out there for a tour. You are one of a kind. Thank you for taking the time to help us w/ our worm farm, and getting us the invaluable information that you did about the worms, our bins, our dog situation, everything! Just can't say enough, thank you thank you thank you! My son and I both sincerely enjoyed our visit! :-)

We recently went to Da-Le Ranch with our group and we had a great time at the worm farm. Dave and Leslie are wonderful people who really take the time to explain the importance of the worms. We loved it and hope to go back soon.

Da-Le ranch is an amazing place! I have had the pleasure of meeting Dave and Leslie on two different occasions, both of which are quite memorable. My first visit included a full tour of the farm, including meeting all their wonderful animals and the vermiculture area. Dave even gave me some eggs from his hens and turkeys, which he actually let me "pick" from the nests myself. On the second visit, I bought a pig, and it was delicious; every bit as good as Dave had promised! I have avoided eating meat and other animal products for quite some time, due to the inhumane treatment of animals in factory farming. I can now say with certainty, that at Da-Le Ranch this is not a concern! Dave and Leslie treat their animals extremely well, even practicing humane harvesting, which I was allowed to observe. Based on my observations, Da-Le Ranch is currently the only place I will purchase meat. Their sustainable farming approach is the quintessential example of "family owned and operated," and they have a remarkable ability to make you feel like part of the family in a single visit. My experience at Da-Le ranch is one I will never forget, and I will be a friend and a customer for a long time. I can't wait for my next visit to my new "family farm!"

Our Museum currently has a "Life Science" exhibit, which includes an educational "worm behavior experiment" station, in which we had been using worms from a worm composter bin donated to us by a museum member. However, we had encountered a high mortality rate with our worms, largely due to our lack of Â?worm care knowledge.Â?

Enter Farmer Dave at Da-Le Ranch, whom we found online, to save the day!! And save the day he did!! He jumped hoops to educate us on proper worm care and vermiculture techniques. He also offered wonderful and economical solutions on how we might improve the set up of our "worm station" in a way that might better sustain the wormsÂ? life, while continuing to offer educational opportunities for the children!

He also went to great lengths to ship us his red wiggler worms, outside of their typical shipping dates, to ensure our new worms and Turbo Bin arrived in plenty of time for the next large tour group of children.

I'm happy to report the new worms are settling into their new composter bin very well and appear happy and healthy! Armed with Farmer Dave's wonderful educational tips and excellent reference material, we feel much more confident on how to care for these little guys, and the children are particularly excited about this life science station.

We were grateful for all his patience and time in getting us set up properly!! He and his staff exemplify great customer service and are an excellent resource for healthy worms and great educational material on vermiculture and vermicomposting! Debbie Gleason

Visited this farm a couple of summers ago when they were just getting underway. Got a tour of all their projects. What great vision! Wanted to take part in their garden plots, but ran into time constraints to actually get out there and take care of a garden. Did purchase a bucket of worm castings to enhance my own small organic garden. Definitely have healthier soil! Wish them much luck in their endeavors.

Our homeschool Young Naturalist Club visited Da-Le Ranch last week to learn about vermiculture and vermicomposting. Dave was a wonderful tour guide and host and it was worth the drive. (Part of the fun was driving down a dirt road for over four miles, through our beautiful CA foothills).

Dave taught us a lot about how worms can help reduce our carbon footprint, while transforming kitchen scraps to wonderful soil enrichment that can be used to help the garden grow our own local organic FRESH and NUTRITIOUS food! He related well to the kids and had lots of information and inspiration to share.

My favorite part of the visit was watching all the kids circled around a huge pile of worm castings, digging contentedly and making tunnels in the poop.

We bought a small "TurboBin" to use as a breeding box at home, along with 2 pounds of red wigglers to add to our existing worm bins. Dave's publication that comes with the TurboBin is a great resource. I encourage anyone interested in organic gardening or composting to visit Dave and would recommend his products to those who might be ordering online too.

Really nice people. Good to their animals and customers. Enjoyed our visit to their farm and their pork is awesome!

I recently started buying exceptionally flavorful pork and lamb from Da-Le Ranch at the Saturday morning Little Italy Mercado. I find that supermarket pork is often dry and tasteless, and lamb rarely tastes like lamb, but the meats I've purchased from Dave have been terrific. After talking with Dave I could tell that they obviously care about their animals and treat them with the respect they deserve at Da-Le.

I enjoy being able to purchase my meat from a local, small producer and have found that I can even get non-standard cuts like a whole side of fresh bacon, hog organs, and a saddle of lamb... I just had to ask, and Dave has gone out of his way to get them for me. They say it's a good idea to get to know your Butcher, but I think it's even better to get to know your Farmer!

A friend of mine and I recently took our group of 8 kids, ages 2 - 10, to visit Farmer Dave at the Da-Le Ranch. We went primarily to see and learn about the worms but were excited to see all aspects of the Ranch. Farmer Dave was great with the kids. He really brought the information down to their level while still teaching them proper terms and explaining each step of worm farming.

Farmer Dave not only taught us about the worms but he also let each of the kids getting a chance to help separate the castings, grab a handful of worms and use their senses to understand the differences between the unprocessed manure and the worm processed castings. He also took us on a tour of the rest of the Ranch. He let the kids help feed and water the pigs, rabbits and chickens. They helped him collect eggs and round up a few of the chickens.

We all had a great time. It was very educational and hands-on; a perfect field trip experience. We highly recommend taking a tour of the Da-Le Ranch and learning first hand how worms help our enviroment and our backyards.