Two Camarillo men pleaded not guilty in Ventura County Superior Court last week to felony charges related to growing marijuana in rural Ojai.

Arturo Hernandez, 20, and his brother, Jose Hernandez, 25, were arrested July 19 for marijuana cultivation and conspiracy to commit a crime, both felonies. The elder Hernandez was also charged with carrying a loaded firearm.

Both men remained in the Todd Road county jail in Santa Paula Tuesday on an immigration hold. They’re expected back in court today.

The Hernandez brothers are among 11 people the Ventura County Sheriff’s Narcotics Bureau has arrested in connection with a two-month investigation into marijuana gardens sprouting up along the Highway 33 corridor, north of the city of Ojai, in the Los Padres National Forest. Several gardens were located through aerial searches and citizen reports.

Capt. Ross Bonfiglio, department spokesperson, said it’s common for growers to cultivate marijuana fields in those rural areas.

Bonfiglio said they are “getting more and more” gardens. “It seems like it’s harder to stop it.”

Officers seized more than 23,000 marijuana plants in the recent sweep, according to a department statement.

The investigation, which ended July 21, also resulted in the arrest of Fresno residents Santos Enceso, 43, Rosalio Mendoza, 47, and Jorge Cabrera, 29; Los Angeles resident Jaime Flores, 36; Bakersfield residents Jose Luis Villa, also known as Jorge Talavera, 47, Antonio Medina, 42, and a 17-year-old juvenile whom police would not identify; and Port Hueneme residents Gustavo Estrella, 27, and Enrique Ramos, 43.

The cache brings the year’s total to more than 70,000 marijuana plants that officers have uprooted in the national forest, the department said.

Narcotics detectives found the marijuana gardens several hundred yards to several miles from the roadway and often near hiking and recreation areas, the department said. Each garden had a campsite, typically stocked with camping equipment and fertilizer as well as gardening chemicals illegal to use in this country.

The marijuana growers also dammed streams to divert water through miles of irrigation pipes to their crops.

The department said the gardens and campsites threatened wildlife and the environment. Some former marijuana plots that are nearly 20 years old have yet to recover fully.