The Farm

Our farm is located in the foothills of the Cascades, in Scio, just east of Salem, Oregon. The scenery is beautiful with sloping, green pastures surrounded by forested hills.

Here we raise vegetables and eggs for markets and CSA in Salem and Portland, OR. We raise them to our own stringent standards, without the use of pesticides or herbicides, not even those approved under organic standards. We fertilize with composts, manures and cover crops.

We are working at creating an integrated homestead farm, with crops, animals, pasture, woodlands and wetlands enhancing one another.

Our climate is wetter and our growing season is shorter than in the central Willamette Valley. But we think the trade-offs are worth it:

We are not located on a main road.
Our irrigation water sources, well and creek, are unpolluted.
Our land was not contaminated with organochlorines (such as DDT) in the 50s and 60s when such pesticides were in wide use for crop production. Organic standards do not take persistent pesticide residues into account. Organochlorines have been linked with cancer and are an environmental disaster as they are bioaccumulating.

We love this land. We feel privileged to work on it and care for it every day. We have many projects to restore and enhance its natural beauty.