Realizing the dream to grow tropical dragon fruit in Ventura County

They appear to be wild, hostile plants that reach for the sun with sharp thorns along their branches, yet they produce the most delicate flowers—so large that you need both hands to hold one. In time, those flowers yield the sweetest of fruits, in pops of vibrant pink, red and purple among the sprawling green cacti.

This is the Shulman Dragon Fruit Orchard in Thousand Oaks.

Alik Shulman wanted a place to expand his collection of dragon fruit plants, to grow more varieties and produce and sell the fruit. “I wanted to share my passion for this hobby and see how far I could take it,” says Alik. His goal was to make $100 a day and he does that, albeit it with very long days.

Most days Alik works alone on the orchard from 8am to 8pm, checking each of his 100 potted dragon fruit for emerging flower buds, fertilizing, harvesting fruit, packing orders and filming videos. There are 35 days from when the small buds emerge from the thorns on each branch to the flowers blooming, and another 35 days from pollinating the flowers to harvesting the fruit. Alik knows these timelines well and marks dates with a Sharpie right on the branches to keep track.

He goes home nearby for dinner but returns to the orchard by 9pm—after the flowers have opened and the pollen has dried. His nightly, and most important, task at the orchard is to collect pollen from the anthers (male part) of the open flowers, which he does delicately with a small, battery-powered vacuum. Then he pollinates each flower by dropping just a few particles of the pollen into the stigma (female part) of the flowers using a small fan-shaped makeup brush. The flowers are open for less than 14 hours, opening just before dusk and closing up by 11am the next morning.

Alik packs up the extra pollen in the freezer to keep it viable. He must ship the pollen overnight to his customers in small plastic bags wrapped around a frozen water bottle. One of the reasons he wanted to create the orchard was to have his own supply of pollen, from a mix of varieties, so he could always meet the demand of his blooms and also be able to share it with other growers. Alik says the pollen he sells is 100% guaranteed to successfully pollinate because it is a mix of the pollen he collects nightly from nearly all of the 50 varieties grown in the orchard.

“People will drive an hour or more for pollen and pay $70 for overnight shipping even for one flower that is about to bloom,” says Alik. “They don’t want to miss that magic moment.”

Originally from Ukraine, Alik left for Israel with his family in 1989, then three years later, at age 27, immigrated to the United States on his own and began working in construction in Los Angeles. He continued in construction for nearly 20 years, working his way up to general contractor. Alik’s final build 20 years ago was his current home in Thousand Oaks. In 2000 he completed a certification in software engineering and commuted to Los Angeles to jobs in technology.

Soon after settling into his home, Alik picked up a La Verne dragon fruit plant at a local hardware store and planted it with a simple trellis in his backyard. “One night, after realizing I had 30 flowers blooming that needed to be pollinated, I drove over an hour away at 11pm to get a bag of pollen from a grower,” says Alik. “When the fruits came, I was amazed by the taste and the process, and from then on was hooked on growing and pollinating these unique plants.”

As for many others, the pandemic changed Alik’s focus and trajectory. In 2021, when he was laid off from his tech job and a box of his things arrived from the office, Alik decided he didn’t want to commute again and preferred meeting the demands of his plants to his previous jobs. “Working with the plants was a happier, calmer alternative—being outside, looking at the sky and seeing nature in this way,” he says.

Alik contacted his rabbi in Thousand Oaks about using space behind the temple to establish an orchard and, with the rabbi’s blessing, he got to work clearing the area. The first dragon fruit planted in Alik’s backyard is still the focal point of his collection and consistently produces his largest fruits each year. It not only provided the cuttings for the 30 La Verne plants growing at the orchard now but, several years ago, produced a fruit weighing three pounds that earned Alik the U.S. record for dragon fruits and 70,000 views on YouTube.

Alik sells his fruit directly to visitors at the Westlake Village, Thousand Oaks and Downtown Ventura farmers’ markets during the season, offers free consultations and sells rooted plants and cuttings online through his eBay store.

“Fruit grown locally tastes completely different than imported fruit that has been traveling and sitting on shelves for weeks at the grocery store,” says Alik. “It’s very unusual to have local dragon fruit at our markets here in Ventura County.”

He would like to someday host student researchers from local universities to collect data on his plants, particularly the hybrids, which occur when the seeds from cross-pollinated fruits are germinated and grafted to rooted plant stems.

• For more information visit YouTube: Nature with Alik or Instagram @naturewithalik

Editor’s note: Just before printing, Alik changed the name of his business from Shulman Dragon Fruit Orchard to Nature with Alik.

WHAT’S A DRAGON FRUIT?

Also commonly known as pitaya, dragon fruit is the fruit of a climbing cactus that originated in Mexico and South America. The fruits range in color from white to yellow to pink or red skins and white to pink flesh inside, speckled with black seeds, with an average weight of a half-pound to a pound and a half, depending on the variety.

In the U.S., dragon fruits are grown exclusively in Florida, Hawaii and California and only by a few commercial growers, so most grocery stores carry dragon fruit imported from Vietnam (the leading grower and exporter) or other countries in Southeast Asia. Locally, Alik says, he knows of a commercial dragon fruit farm in Moorpark and another large one in San Diego that supplies the Erewhon markets. Alik was inspired by local growers such as Edgar Valdivia, who 30 years ago brought dragon fruit varieties to California from South America, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Ecuador and Mexico.

The exotic appearance and tropical origins of dragon fruit have always interested growers and consumers, but its potential health benefits are driving a new wave of its popularity. Dragon fruit contains rich amounts of bioactive phytochemicals such as flavonoids, phenols, anthocyanins, and betalains, which are known for their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial and anti-cancer properties. Its flesh has a moisture content of over 85%, so dragon fruit is also very hydrating.*

Try making the dragon fruit lemonade that Alik shares with visitors after a tour through his sun-drenched orchard in Thousand Oaks using fresh dragon fruit, lemon juice, mint and agave syrup or freeze the dragon fruit to add to your smoothies for sweetness and color.