This post was sponsored by Whole Foods Market, America’s Healthiest Grocery Store.

We’re pretty serious about our avocado intake: from guac to toast to green smoothies – it’s a daily addiction. So put us on an organic avocado orchard like Stehly Farms and we’re in our element. Charlie had Wonka and the chocolate factory, we’ve got organic farmers like Noel Stehly and the sprawling organic and sustainable farms of California. To each their own, but here at the Chalkboard, we’d prefer to pick organic produce straight from trees than tour Willy Wonka’s creepy factory anyday.

We’re meeting new farmers and learning new things all the time from some of California’s best farms – many of them we encounter for the first time in the produce section. Our Chalkboard headquarters here in L.A. are triangulated by three Whole Foods Market locations, (the ideal conditions sought when office hunting, naturally,) each of which has a sprawling organic produce section.

It’s in these Whole Foods Markets that we first got hooked on Stehly Farms avocados (it’s a problem,) not to mention their strawberries and blackberries when in season.

The Stehly family’s sprawling Southern California farm began as a chicken ranch in the 1960’s. When they realized just how much, um, organic fertilizer their chickens produced at a time when organic produce was just beginning to boom, they knew they might have a foot in the game. But it was a personal experience with friends of the family, however, that really sealed the deal for them and made their organic aspirations a reality.

Friends of the Stehly’s were working in 1960’s s biotech and raising daughters just the age of the Stehly’s own nieces. At that precious tween age, their friend’s daughters began experiencing hormonal changes and complications that their biotech-educated parent’s were quick to connect with the modern food supply the girls were being raised on. That was enough for Noel Stehly and family to make the leap and plant their first plot of organic avocado trees.

That orchard grew and to it, the Stehly’s soon added strawberry fields, blackberries, citrus orchards and a whole host of other popular produce. Their adventures in organic farming began as simply as that and soon sprung to life, full force.

It took years for the Stehly farm to become certified organic. But once they were certified, they began a relationship with Whole Foods Market that the Stehly’s describe as a “partnership.” As they do with so many small organic farms, Whole Foods Market worked closely with the Stehly’s to advise them on business matters from packaging to promotion and helped to the farm to create the best products possible.

For us, shopping Whole Foods Market’s produce section is like voting with our dollars in support of organic California farms. As we recently learned from Environmental Working Group President, Ken Cook, Whole Foods Market produce standards continue to evolve, pushing farms higher and higher in their sustainable standards. Their new tiered rating system for produce is the ultimate for those of us wishing to support responsible farming and eat produce that is as “clean” as can possibly be.

There are many perspectives on organic farming and we thought this farm’s perspective was incredibly insightful. Read Farmer Noel’s thoughts below, then enjoy a recipe we whipped up in honor of Stehy Farms: an incredibly delicious dessert made with farm-fresh berries, oranges and avocados from their own farm…

This post was sponsored by Whole Foods Market, America’s Healthiest Grocery Store.