Salinas Valley
— — the long green valley Steinbeck kept writing about.
Not only on a wall.
“The Salinas Valley runs about ninety miles south from Monterey Bay to the hills above Paso Robles, a long trough of dark soil between two mountain ranges. Most of the lettuce, broccoli, and strawberries on an American plate come out of this valley. Steinbeck grew up in Salinas and set most of his books in it. A working landscape rather than a scenic one — fog in the morning, fieldwork all day, and the smell of cut greens on the breeze coming off the river. from the studio
Salinas Valley, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Salinas Valley is a roughly 90-mile structural valley in California's Central Coast, lying mostly in Monterey County between the Gabilan Range on the east and the Santa Lucia Range on the west. The Salinas River drains it northward into Monterey Bay near Moss Landing. U.S. Route 101 runs the length of the valley, linking Salinas, Gonzales, Soledad, Greenfield, and King City. The valley floor sits between roughly sea level and 400 feet across that span.
Cool marine air pulled inland through the gap at Monterey Bay gives the valley a long, mild growing season and the nickname Salad Bowl of the World. Monterey County reported about 4.4 billion dollars in agricultural production in 2022, led by leaf lettuces, strawberries, broccoli, and wine grapes from the Arroyo Seco and Santa Lucia Highlands appellations. The Mission San Antonio de Padua, founded in 1771 in the southern valley, is the third of the California missions and still functions as a parish.
John Steinbeck was born in Salinas in 1902 and set Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, and parts of The Grapes of Wrath in the valley and along its eastern hills. The National Steinbeck Center on Main Street in Salinas opened in 1998 and holds his Nobel medal and working manuscripts. The California Rodeo Salinas has run every July since 1911, one of the oldest professional rodeos in the country, and remains the city's signature week.