a field growing plastic

Strawberries are a major crop in Camarillo. If you see those white sheets of plastic covering the fields in January, it's not plastic they're growing, but the humble strawberry.

Camarillo's Santa Rosa Valley is the birthplace of the Camrosa strawberry, which is known for its beauty, large size, strength in shipping, and relative tastelessness. Still, they're great for the trip to the Minnesota or Japan. If you're shopping for strawberries, look for smaller, more flavorful berries at a Farmers Market. Let the rest of the world eat the camrosas, while you eat the sweeter, more delicate varieties grown near home.

Farmers are phasing out the use of methyl bromide (which will soon be prohibited under the Montreal Protocol) as a pesticide for strawberry plants. Chemists didn't look far when they came up the potential replacement gas: methyl iodide.