Farming

Our farming is organic, undogmatic, and responsive to our land and the people who work it. We are low-input as a matter of both ethics and economy. Most of our work is done by hand, but we use machines when we think it’s right to do so.

We look as far into the future as we are able. Operational planning with a 100 year view requires acquiescence to the innate order of things, so we work with the tendencies of our ecology. An organic farm is a complex natural system, contrary to the “conventional” farms of the last half+ century, which tend to self-conceive and operate more like open air factories.

We are keenly aware that our ecological relationships include those among people. We rely on a group of dedicated employees who have lived significant portions of their lives on this land; everything made here has come out of collective work and specialized know-how.

We grow wine grapes, cherries, and pears on a commercial scale, but there are more than one hundred varieties of fruiting trees and vines at Idiot’s Grace. The oldest cherry trees have been here for about a century. Those blocks of trees are outmoded yet full of character, and they produce good fruit. We run a u-pick stand every summer, open usually in the last few weeks of June.

The wild biodiversity on this land is even more important than what we plant, and harder to summarize: we recommend you walk around and conduct your own survey.

We are certified organic, and that’s the only certification we’ve pursued. The language around agriculture changes much more quickly than the practices: we've been farming with the same ethic for a quarter century, shaping our practices to the character of this place. We like to talk about farming and encourage you to ask us any questions you have about our practices.