Story and photos by Kim Gossen

April 25, 2005

Sunbow Farm is the Corvallis area’s oldest certified organic market garden. Located on the corner of Bellfountain Road and Plymouth Drive, Sunbow has been growing “good, clean food” since 1972. It is owned by the co-founder of Oregon Tilth, Harry MacCormack, who was featured recently in the Corvallis Gazette-Times in its “People who make things happen” series. http://www.gtconnect.com/articles/2005/02/28/
news/business/monbiz01.txt And he keeps making things happen with courses offered through his “Institute of Biowisdom” and involvement in the Benton County Food Systems Coalition, a group that is promoting more local food production and improvements in food security.

In recent years Harry has shared his wealth of farming knowledge by inviting people starting out in farming to take on the day-to-day work of running Sunbow. Luke Donahue and Rebecca Pressnall are “new generation” farmers with plenty of enthusiasm for farming -- but as yet no land of their own. They began living and working at Sunbow in January. Along with their passion for organic gardening, they bring solid experience: Rebecca studied with renowned herbalist Susan Weed in upstate New York , and Luke has interned with Portland Community Gardens . The couple met while working on a small organic farm in northern California 4 years ago. “It’s amazing how much food just a couple of acres can produce,” says Rebecca.

Sunbow is a big farm to Luke and Rebecca, with 6 of 15 total acres under cultivation. Some of the acreage is being used to store and make compost and compost tea, both for use on the farm and for sale. Sunbow gets much of its compost materials from the City of Corvallis ’ fall leaf pick up and also collects green waste from nine local restaurants for composting.

This year Sunbow Farm will grow garlic, potatoes, leeks, onions, salad greens, mustard greens and 35 different varieties of tomatoes. Rebecca has started herbs of various kinds, including some medicinals: nettle, red clover, oat straw, red raspberry, chamomile, lovage, and calendula, to name a few.

In addition to the Corvallis Saturday and Wednesday farmers’ markets, Rebecca and Luke will continue selling their produce to Portland and Newport. They consider their prime markets to be up in Portland but naturally would love a more local presence. This year they are testing to see if Corvallis pencils out for them -- other larger growers prove tough competition around here. The 13-year-old People’s Co-op Farmers’ Market in SE Portland is limited to very small farms, and Sunbow has done well there in the past.

Sunbow also sells produce direct to the locally owned café Sunnyside Up.

What else is new? Starting this week Sunbow will offer a self-serve farmstand out of its Plymouth Drive location.

Copyright © 2005, Corvallis-Albany Farmers' Markets
Last updated 4-29-05