Four Ashland farms take part in annual Rogue Valley Farm Tour

By Meg Wade for Ashland.news

Farmers in Ashland welcomed visitors on Sunday, July 20, as part of an annual event that gives the public an opportunity to learn about local food and those who produce it.

The Ashland farmers were part of a network of 30 farms that participated in the Rogue Valley Farm Tour, which is organized by the Rogue Valley Food System Network, the Ashland Food Co-op and the Medford Food Co-op.

Restoration at Willow-Witt Ranch

The participating farms around Ashland represented a diverse array of aspirations for local agriculture. Those include helping consumers better understand where their food comes from, land restoration and developing new crop varieties specifically suited to Southern Oregon.

Located inside the boundaries of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, Willow-Witt Ranch has participated in the Rogue Valley Farm Tour each year since its inception in 2018, said owner Suzanne Willow.

The farm tour is about “getting people to know about local food and the people who produce it,” she said.

“For us specifically it’s an opportunity for people to come up. We’re only 11 miles from the freeway, but a world away. People have no idea that agriculture and forest care is happening up here.”

Willow-Witt Ranch marketing specialist Tara Dougherty led visitors around the premises, walking through rows of vegetables and past a hoop house, then circling back to the barn to meet the goats. She talked about the choice to raise browsing animals like goats, which feed on shrubs and plants higher above the ground, rather than grazing animals, such as cows or sheep, that eat grasses.

Browsing animals are better suited to forests and thus support the ranch’s forest restoration work, Dougherty said. She said a previous practice of raising cattle on the land destroyed many of the natural meadows and marshes that the team at the ranch continues to help restore.

Alpine goats

The goats at Willow-Witt are alpine goats, suited to packing, and the staff leads them on packing trips during the winter months. They are also milked, and the raw milk is sanitized onsite and sold in the farm store at the ranch, alongside produce and eggs.

Petting, not packing, occupied the goats on Sunday. A chance to visit with the animals was the draw for many of the visitors. Stvlanna Orejuela of Medford, who said she was new to the area and went on the farm tour to learn more about it, said she intentionally toured farms with animals.

Aleshia Odom’s family from Grants Pass was also at Willow-Witt. They were excited to learn not just about the farm but also the ranch’s camping facilities.

“We have gone to the farm tour the last two years,” Odom said. She added that they were making an effort to visit the Ashland farms this year.

‘Nose-to-tail’ at Uproot Meats

Uproot Meats, just off Siskiyou Boulevard on the edge of town, is much closer for most tour participants than Willow-Witt. That doesn’t mean accessing its hillside full of heritage pigs is easy. On Sunday visitors drove slowly up the steep, rocky and narrow track and through multiple gates, where they found themselves welcomed with cold hibiscus-mint tea and fresh-picked blackberries to make up for their trouble.

The road is part of why Uproot has been open by appointment only. But access to their meats will soon be easier, as they launch new ways this year to bring their “nose-to-tail” pork offerings to the public. Their new food truck, named Pistola’s, will have its grand opening at the Talent Evening Market at 202 Talent Ave. on Friday, July 25, from 5 to 9 p.m. A shop in Phoenix featuring their meat and that of other producers is set to open in September.

Krista Vegter, who owns Uproot, said sourcing and collaborating locally is part of Uproot’s mission. That, and using as much from each pig as possible. But she’s found surprises along the way when trying to do so. There are products she can’t sell or source from Southern Oregon, she said, because of regulations and industry practices. Sausage casings are a one such item.

“So when we get our sausage casings, even if they were raised in America, they get shipped to Poland and China to get the casings cleaned.”

“We can’t even get ours back,” Vegter said.

For other needs she is able to stay closer to home, even if not within the Rogue Valley. She said that Uproot works with Crystal Creeks in Roseburg for slaughtering.

Feeding time

Vegter hauled buckets of peas soaked in apple cider vinegar to feed the red wattle pigs gathering up the hill. The pigs also eat acorns from the white oaks and morels that grow near the madrones in the woods on the farm, Vegter said.

Andy and Ann Wallace of Ashland walked with Vegter and watched as the pigs gathered round in anticipation.

“We want to eat the freshest, most humane food we can possibly get, because it’s healthy to do,” said Andy, when asked why they were on the farm tour.

“All the things that are sourced here and grown here is part of what makes it vibrant, and part of why we live here.”

Heritage grain at Hardy Seeds

Over at Hardy Seeds, Chris Hardy is at work trying to make sure that wheat and other grains are part of the vibrant crop diversity in Southern Oregon. At his plot at Eagle Mill Farm in Ashland he grows not just one kind of wheat but many kinds of grain, along with spelt, barley, emer, and einkorn, as well as legumes, part of his work with the Rogue Valley Heritage Grain Project.

Hardy thinks he’s growing around 35 varieties this year, though he says the project has been working with over 200 varieties since its start. The different varieties are from seed gathered from all over the world, representing many places Hardy himself has traveled, including areas that face the same climate challenges, such as increased aridity and hotter average temperatures, that Southern Oregon is seeing.

“Our mission is to work with a diversity of seeds that are adapted to Southern Oregon’s climate extremes and get them into the hands of farmers across Southern Oregon to increase the numbers of grains that were being produced here locally,” Hardy said.

Local bakeries involved

He estimated that maybe only a dozen small farms are growing wheat commercially right now. But different bakers are already working with local grains, including wheat from the Heritage Grain Project. Hardy named Rise Up! Artisan Bread, Mix Bakeshop and Coquette Bakery as examples.

While the farm tour offered the chance to see the heritage grain, workshops in August will provide an opportunity to dive deeper.

“We’re gonna be working with processing heritage and harvesting heritage grain. Top to bottom, cleaning, everything to do get to where you could drop it in the grinder and make a loaf of bread,” Hardy said.

Exact dates and times for the workshops are still to be set. To receive details once they are available, those interested can contact Hardy at [email protected] or by phone 541-301-6447.

Organic orchards at Valley View

By the afternoon, though the overall number of visitors to most farms had slowed, new faces continued to appear.

Alex Wolk and his son Jonah, age 6, arrived at Valley View Orchard, their second farm of the day, to pick peaches.

“It’s a chance to see the amazing farms throughout the Rogue Valley that we rarely get to see at this kind of level,” Wolk said.

“Just meeting the farmers, seeing the land and seeing where food comes from, and just getting a better sense of our local economy and our local farms,” he added.

Joe Davis and Sid Frederick were repeat participants in the event. Originally from the Bay Area, Davis said that part of why they choose to live in Ashland is “the close availability” of farms and nature.

They come back because there’s no way to see all the participating venues.

“You get to a few that you love and then you don’t get to the rest,” said Frederick. Valley View was their final stop of the day after time further afield.

John Benesch was just arriving to volunteer at the orchard.

“I’m interested in the food supply in the valley,” Benesch said about his motivations for taking part, along with wanting to help create a space where children can see the source of their food.

Learning where food comes from

“Kids are on their computers and their phones all the time, and when they need food, they just go to the refrigerator. They don’t have a clue where food comes from,” said Benesch.

Making things visible is part of the goal in participating, said Kathy O’Leary, co-owner of Valley View.

“I feel very strongly that once you see where your food comes from, you become an advocate for having it local and for having it organic.

And so the more people that come and see the fruit that’s here, and become familiar with where they can buy local produce — I feel like that’s just a win for everybody.”

Organic farming

In their commitment to being organic, O’Leary said, the staffers at Valley View do much of their work mechanically, to avoid herbicides. Despite using some sprays and treatments, O’Leary said, everything is certified organic.

“Which for me is very important,” O’Leary said, “The inert ingredients are places that lots of bad things can hide. Especially if the product comes from, say, the mining industry or construction, you might find some things that if you knew about you wouldn’t want to put on your property, on your stuff.”

“So that’s one reason that I feel very strongly that organic produce is healthier, and that caring for the land in that way is more sustainable and also the right level of stewardship.”

Some of Valley View’s members, she said, come to pick blackberries on the edge of the orchard because they can be certain of what’s on them.

Although some of the farms featured on the Rogue Valley Farm Tour open to the public only during the annual event, others are available for visiting throughout the year. Willow-Witt offers guided in-depth farm tours as well as “migrations,” or walks, with their goats. Valley View Orchard offers regular “u-pick” hours of 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Fridays, Saturday, and Sundays.

The Rogue Valley Food System Network offers an online directory of local farms, producers and growers markets for those seeking to explore the local food network.

Reach freelance reporter Meg Wade at [email protected].