What
Backyard Bounty Farm is an urban farming operation growing fresh, high-quality vegetables, fruits, and herbs for Portland area folks. Over 200 varieties are grown in love for CSA, restaurants, and others who want to eat good nourishing food.
The produce comes from fertile soils along Johnson Creek in Milwaukie at Lovena Farm, just 7 miles from downtown Portland (see map here). Upon entering the property, the sounds of the car traffic and neighboring industry fades to the bubbling of the creek, birds talking, people laughing, and plants being kissed by the wind. Cottonwood, maple, birches, willows, and native bushes line the creek bank and surround the farm holding the land as a sanctuary. Four households are scattered on the 2.7 acre land amongst the 50 fruit trees, vines and bushes, cars, falling down barn, new barn, cats, muddy driveways, greenhouse, and 1/2 acre veggie field. At work is a dynamic experiment in community attempting to interact with nature and each other in harmonious ways.
Backyard Bounty’s second season on the farm follows a deep history of humans connected to this land. Native American held the site as sacred and hunted and gathered their sustenance. In the 1950’s Lovena and Curtis Horner planted the fruits, grew corn and other crops, and tended to the land into their 80’s. In 2005, four households bought the property together to raise their families and live more connected to the land. Since 2006, the 1/2 acre field has been a production farm.
What we Grow
Backyard Bounty offers a diverse mix of over 200 varieties of vegetables, herbs, and fruits, all year round.
- Vegetables – arugula, asian greens, beans, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, chicories,
collards, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuces, mustards, onions, peas, potatoes, parsnips, peas, peppers, radishes, rutabaga, squashes, tomatoes, and turnips.
- Herbs – basil, chervil, cilantro, dill, and parsley.
- Fruits- figs, grapes, kiwis, pears, persimmons, plums.
Farming Methods: Natural Style!
*Varieties chosen with nutrition, flavor, and yield in mind. Mostly open pollinated seed source.
*No synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides or genetically modified seeds.
*Amendments added to build soil fertility including alfalfa meal, kelp meal, rock phosphate, dolomite and agricultural lime, and azomite.
*Low till and no till.
*Limited inputs and energy expended.
*Transport some produce by bicycle trailer.
*Save seeds.
*Dry gardening experimentation.
*Insectary plants and providing habitat for wildlife.
*Crop rotation and cover cropping.
Backyard Bounty History
This will be my fourth year running a CSA. Backyard Bounty has its roots in turning lawns into food. In 2007 in my parent’s and neighbors’ SW Portland backyards, I started a 8 member CSA. The second season I partnered with Sunroot Gardens turning over 20 lawns to farm plots throughout SE. We were mostly “bike farmers:” toting tools and produce around with the trailer! Last year the opportunity to lease at Lovena changed the operation by increasing scale and decreasing number of lots one large backyard.
