Local Harvest And Rideway Farms
This past summer I checked out Ridgeway Farms up in Turner, Oregon on their Visitors Day, September 8th. This farm had just begun and offered the best apples that I have ever tasted. The farm is owned by Terri Barczak or Toni Rogers and everything grown on this land at the farm is natural and all-organic. I found out about Ridgeway Farms through Local Harvest. And even though I live in quite a small town, where the isn’t much going on as far as events and businesses listing under Local Harvest, I was grateful to receive an email on a company that is now in my area caring about the environment as much as I do. Ridgeway Farms is located on the Turner exit off I5 north. They were tucked back from the road and it did take us a few moments to realize where they were located. My first impression was “this is quite a small farm, and sort of difficult to find.” But, once inside the gate, I realized Ridgeway Farms was much more than just a small farm.
They offer fruits in the variety of: McIntosh apples, Fuji apples, Yellow Delicious apples, and green apples, Sekel and Comice pears, Misty, Blue Crop, Duke, Patriot, Bridgett blueberries, Caroline raspberries and vine ripened kiwi.
They offer vegetables in the variety of: Yellow crookneck, papaya and delicata squash, jack-o-lantern pumpkins, Russet, yellow Finn, red and purple potatoes, Peacevine, Brandywine, Stupice, Legend, Willamette, Current, Oregon Spring Bush tomatoes, Tuscan, Wild Red, Wild Garden kale, amaranth, Bibb, Red Sails, and Black Seeded lettuce, Avon, Melody, Mountain, Bloomsdale spinach, Purple Top turnips, Walla Walla, Spanish and Evergreen Bunching onions, Sunder and Danver carrots, Sumter and Straight Eight cucumber, shallots, California Wonder sweet peppers and Ring-o-Fire cayenne, jalapeno, New Mexico Joe E. Parker and Aci Sivri hot peppers.
They grow herbs in the variety of: Cilantro, basil, tarragon, mint, chives and parsley.
With knowing that Ridgeway Farms offers organic growing practices, it is one reason I am so happy to have visited their farm and partake in the benefits of a natural grower that shares passionate thoughts about the environment, as myself. While I was there learning about their growing practices I was also told that the demand is greater than their product. They are growing organic apples during the summer months and they never meet their own orders completely before the colder weather hits. If you are interested in trying some
If you would like to see what farms, nurseries, markets, and growers are in your own area that offer organic, natural growing practices then log onto Local Harvest. You can even sign up for their email service that will contact you anytime a farm, grower, market, etc. is doing any type of public offering. This is how I became aware of Ridgeway Farms and if I hadn’t logged onto Local Harvest I would never have known that there was a great little farm that grows organic produce just outside my own town.
*Natural and Sustainable Living Tip: Seal up your house this winter to prevent heat loss. It’s always a great idea to seal up your home, shop, garage or even your attic to prevent this energy loss in the winter months, but it also helps out with less energy waste in the summer when you run you airconditioner as well.
November 11th, 2009 at 5:14 am
Its always fun reading your blog. Thanks for posting this!