Gathering Together Farm has been a certified organic farm since 1987. They farm over 50 acres and in the height of the season they have around 120 people working in the fields, restaurant and market. The farm is owned by John Eveland and Sally Brewer but management is divided up over various groups like cultivation, harvest, planting, restaurant, and fertility.

I am interning on their farm for six weeks, I’m looking to learn about their organic practices and how they organize their priorities. There are probably at least ten different things that can be done on a farm at any given time, but how do you decide what needs to be done? How do you partition labor and organize crops, I hope to have a better idea.

Week 1

Meeting the Farm

I’m always a little nervous to start new things. Everyone was telling me that my bosses John and Sally are the nicest people ever so naturally I was skeptical. They certainly seemed nice when I talked to them over the phone, but I didn’t know what to expect, I had from 2:30 am driving to the airport to landing across the country and another hour drive to Gather Together Farm to speculate. 

But of course Sally said that I and my mom’s friend(who lives in the area and who drove me) could have lunch in their restaurant and when we stepped into the place, the waitress was excited to meet me and I met the person I was staying with, who instantly gave me the key and invited me to eat dinner with them. John and Sally showed up, they were trying to figure out what to do with an extra 18 flats of strawberries that an order didn’t want anymore. But they introduced themselves, gave me hugs, and we sat down to the most delicious lunch. 

After lunch my mom’s friend and I hopped into one of their farm cars and got a tour of the various fields.

The Mercedes Tour

Rows of Lettuce

Maps

Over the years John and Sally have incorporated surrounding fields into their production, its a lot to keep track of, so every field has a name. This helps organize where lettuce is going to be transplanted or what fields needs to be cultivated.

All the fields with their labels

My Thoughts

Its a lot to take in, the farm is twice the size of mine back home, with over a hundred employees, (compared to our 20). There are so many more because they have a restaurant and they hire people just to do markets. The markets over fifty miles away and the truck hauling the produce can carry two people at most and the Portland market needs 8!. I’m looking forward to seeing how it is all managed.

what’s in: Strawberries!