Member Spotlight
Rosie’s ORGANICS
Jennifer Wengeler lives and farms twenty-five acres north of Spokane, moving there three and a half years ago, after working, living, and growing food in Seattle for many years. Continue reading
Central Co-op
The Central Co-op in Seattle is a member-owned grocery store open to all shoppers and located where the densely-populated Capitol Hill neighborhood meets the Central District. Late one mid-January afternoon Amina Parker, Director of Marketing and Public Relations, and Shelby Jors, Produce Manager, sat down with Tilth Producers in the Central Co-op’s offices atop the busy grocery. Beforehand Shelby gave a tour of the produce department, work areas, and modest cooler. Continue reading
Burnt Ridge Nursery and Orchards
Michael Dolan and I talked a day after a November storm raged through Lewis County, creating power outages and flooding. Michael was upbeat nonetheless, still eager to talk about trees, the harvest, the ridge, past storms.
By Jacqueline Cramer Continue reading
Dharma Ridge Farm
Dharma Ridge Farm is a certified organic vegetable farm about 20 miles outside of Port Townsend. Farmers Haley Olson Wailand and Zach Wailand started farming in high school and recently consolidated their operation from multiple leased parcels to a single 100-acre parcel of leased land in the fertile Leland Valley. Continue reading
Arabesque Farm & Bakery
Tom and Louise Tuffin are long haul advocates for a healthy local food/agriculture system in the Spokane area. They run Arabesque Farms and Bakery in Spokane, WA. Along with sons Nick & Jake, and Jake’s partner Robin, They sell fresh primarily through farmer’s markets. The Tuffins are developing a new location for the bakery. Continue reading
Maple Rock Farm
Maple Rock Farm is beginning its 12th season on Orcas Island. Farm owner John Steward invited me to the farm-house for breakfast and heart-filled confabulations about his drive to meet the year-round demand for local food in his community, challenges to farming on an island, and the future farmers. Continue reading
Kershaw Fruit
Dave Gleason is Chief Horticulturalist for Kershaw Fruit in the Yakima Valley. Since 2003, Dave has been managing about 1,000 acres of orchards around Eastern Washington. Continue reading
Bone Dry Ridge
Selma Bjarnadottir was born and raised in Iceland. She grew up in the city, though her grandparents and uncles are sheep farmers. At twelve years old, Selma went to work on a sheep and horse farm that became her second home. Selma went to college in Eugene, Oregon, and fell in love with the West Coast of the United States. Eight years after college she bought the 40-acre Bone Dry Ridge farm with her husband Markthor, where they now raise Icelandic Sheep, Scottish Highland cows, pigs, and chickens. Continue reading
Grateful Food Farms
Valerie Rose spent her childhood on a 150-acre commodity crop farm in Northeast Illinois. She left for college, and followed up with 12 years in public broadcasting and 12 years in research and health at the University of Washington. Just before Seattle Tilth’s Rainier Beach Urban Farm came to her South Seattle neighborhood in 2010, Valerie moved to Mount Vernon. There she became a Master Gardener and wrote a gardening column for the Skagit Valley Herald. Valerie recently started an exciting new endeavor—leasing one acre of land at Viva Farms, an incubator farm in Whatcom County. On her own Grateful Food Farms, Valerie currently grows snow peas, collard starts and garlic, with high hopes for a hot summer yield of melons, sweet corn and pole beans. Continue reading
Punkin Center Farms
Nearly twenty years after leaving their hometown of Zillah, Spencer and Susan Wilson returned to their native Yakima Valley in 2008 to embark on a new adventure—owning and operating 65-acre Punkin Center Farms. Named for a small store that once served laborers making their way through the valley picking fruit, Punkin Center Farms boasts 30 acres of fruit orchards, a 4-acre market garden and 30 acres of “hope and potential.” Along with four-year-old son, Laek, dogs, Quincy, Colonel, and Tater, the couple has been hard at work restoring the orchards to good health, cultivating the market garden and refurbishing an old building into a guesthouse for agro-tourism. While Spencer may still call himself a ‘novice,’ Punkin Center Farms will see its second season of sales this year, with a new CSA program beginning in June. Continue reading
Blue Skies Farm & Bakery
Krissy Biernacki and her husband Todd made a decision to change careers six years ago and have since established a small farm and bread bakery on 20 acres between Trout Lake and White Salmon. With backgrounds in horticulture and chemical engineering, as well as in managing the 30-member Trout Lake Farm CSA this past season, the pair was poised for success. Todd has come full circle as a chemist, applying his skills and drive to baking. Krissy manages the farm and its local connections, and delights in her community and the food ethics that surround them. “It surprises people from the city,” says Krissy, “but being a part of this community – it’s a little utopia.” Continue reading
Cliffside Orchard
Jeff Herman’s path to a 30-year career owning and operating Cliffside Organic Orchard in Washington began on a whim. In 1973, Jeff emerged from a Cascadian backpacking trip to find himself in Central Washington at the height of the fruit season. Jeff decided to take a seasonal job picking fruit, even though his previous farming experience had been limited to cattle and hay in Maryland as a teen. After two seasons picking, Jeff and his wife-to-be, Jeanette, teamed up to begin managing a traditionally farmed nine acre orchard in the Wenatchee Valley. In 1982, Jeff and Jeanette bought seven pristine acres near Kettle Falls and began producing fruit exclusively with organic practices. Twenty-nine years later, Cliffside Orchard remains completely organic and has grown to include 1,000 trees, including myriad varieties of apricots, peaches, pears, plums, cherries, nectarines and apples. Continue reading
Granny’s Farm
Larry Warnberg, child psychologist-turned-oyster farmer-turned farmsteader, is truly a man of all trades. Larry and his wife, Sandy Bradley, own and run Granny’s Farm on 100 acres in the Willapa Valley. After only three years, Granny’s Farm is bustling with … Continue reading
Kai Ottesen
Although Kai Ottesen works on his family’s farm – his journey to farming is an unusual one. Kai grew up in Juneau, Alaska where food (save fish and a few seasonal blueberries) arrives on a barge after three days at … Continue reading
PDQ Farms
When Stu Simmons bought land outside of Zillah in 1986, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with the property. Stu married Sandra, time went by, and they decided they needed to do something with the property “pretty darn … Continue reading
Ralph’s Greenhouse
Anyone who imagines farmers as curmudgeons never crossed paths with Ray deVries of Ralph’s Greenhouse. Even though being a farmer was never part of Ray’s life plan, his exuberance and kind spirit, his commitment to his work and to the … Continue reading
Farmgate Organics
Lon Ball established Trout Lake Farms in Trout Lake, Washington on the “organic frontier” in 1973. Thirty-four years later Lon was ready to retire and offered his son, Nate, the original homestead and 45 surrounding acres to strike out on … Continue reading
Cedarville Farm
Mike Finger found his inspiration for farming at The Evergreen State College. After hearing an inspiring lecture by Woody Deryckx and absorbing Wendell Berry’s “The Unsettling of America,” Mike surprised his peers in the biology department by proclaiming, “I’m going … Continue reading
Chris & Mike Conroy
“We are not farmers,” Chris Conroy says. But Chris and her husband Mike have been members of Tilth Producers since the early 1990’s because Tilth provides them with the resources they need to garden in very wet Ariel, Washington. Spend … Continue reading
Jello Mold Farm
Creativity and strong ethics drive the Jello Mold Farm team of Diane Szukovathy & Dennis Westphall. Lifelong artists and gardeners, the two turned their attention to farming and land stewardship in 2001. Together they’ve established a successful, sustainable specialty cut … Continue reading