Our Flagship Farm: Fogcatcher Farm

Farmer Annie's Statement:

I have lived on this land since I was 7. My whole life is connected to this piece of earth. It’s where I learned to plant, to harvest, to prune, to compost, to can, to cook, to work hard. It inspired me, nurtured and nourished me, caught my tears, and taught me what matters in life. 

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Even as I say all of that, I am acutely aware that the original inhabitants of this land were stolen away from her, and she from them. So I want to acknowledge that the land on which Fogcatcher Farm sits is the unceded territory of the Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok peoples.

I am a Community Organizer. I have been organizing for racial, gender and environmental justice for the past 15 years. I came to organizing as a way to process and channel my trauma and rage, and turn it into the building of community power. It was in organizing that I began to understand that my liberation and healing is inextricably tied to that of others. Until we are all free.

But as the years wore on, I began to feel stuck. I saw that the organizers who came before me were burning out. Leaving organizing because their spirits and bodies were worn down by the fight. I began to realize that if I wanted to keep organizing, I needed to focus on healing. On healing my spirit and my body. And the only way I could do that was in connection, in loving conversation, with this land that grew me.

So Fogcatcher Farm was born. We grow medicinal herbs, fruit trees, veggies, olives, and the next generation of humans! We believe that it is our mission to take care of our people, heal our earth, and find joy in the soil. We are constantly learning and adapting, guided by the wisdom of our elders and the energy of our youth. And I continue to organize for racial, gender and environmental justice. It turns out that this piece of earth has a whole lot to teach me about that, too!

Tributary Tea Farm

Farmer Jill's Statement:

I grew up on a narrow strip of land along a wild and scenic river in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. My childhood was full of orchards of peaches, apples, apricots, and row crops for our roadside farm stand. The riverbank was cool and shady, strewn with round river rock, a place to build forts and hide.

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As I grew up, inevitable changes came in the form of  generational transitions in food systems that strained the economic viability of small family farms, as well as a flood and the end of a marriage that left impressions on all of our hearts and the land. I left for a career in public health focused on preventive care for women and people with female physiology, and continue to work to strengthen and support the feminine in all of its many forms.

Orchards were replaced by greenhouses and rows of rhododendron and azalea plants for my father’s thriving nursery business. Much of the property was left to run wild with blackberries, turkey, deer, and other wildlife.

The river remains as it has always been, digging deeper into its banks in some places and laying new sediment in others, but singing the same song and reflecting light and holding mist as it always has. The river courses with a strong current that continues to pull me back to this land.

New transitions now beckon me to deepen my connections to the soil, to growing, to the past and the future. Something new is sprouting out of compacted earth. Our land will be dedicated to growing healthy, strong, nourishing plants for tea blends that incorporate the wild collected herbs of the riverbank – blackberry, nettle, Oregon grape – with plants cultivated for their beauty and benefits – green tea, hibiscus, lavender.

I bring a passion for science and learning, dedication to inspired visions of cultivation and economic relationships to farming – to regain balance between ways of knowing that are key to adaptation and healing. 

Bella Luna Farm

Farmer Andrea's Statement:

I am blessed to reside on a five-acre orange orchard in a small agricultural community in Southern California. To be clear, I am not a farmer, it would be wildly inaccurate to describe myself as one. I stumbled into this adventure unexpectedly a few years ago.

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 Living off the grid as I now do has made me more fully aware of our world; land, air, water, sunlight, moonshine, stars – I marvel at it all. My vision, my purpose and my passion are to plant, to grow and to nurture.

 However small my harvests, they will be precious.  

Our Farming Partnerships:

Northern California

Fogcatcher Farm

Southern California

Bella Luna Farm

Central Oregon

Wild Tea Farm