Curling grape vines, fruit-bearing shrubs, and antique apple trees stretch their limbs next to a mosaic of hoop houses and protected wetlands across the 26 acres of SpringRain Farm and Orchard. Chickens pluck spent fruit from the fields while ducks mow through grass, leaving precious fertilizer in their wake. These plant/animal relationships are a vital part of SpringRain’s integrated organic farming system, carefully designed to nourish the land and the food it produces.

John Bellow and Roxanne Hudson, partners in life and business, established SpringRain Farm and Orchard in 2008. After a two-year search for the right property, they settled in farm-studded Chimacum Valley. “When we bought this farm,” says Roxanne, “it had been a farm for many generations, but it was in great disrepair.” So they got to work building infrastructure and farming systems to complement the land’s natural ecology.

SpringRain Farm’s “systems approach” is a reflection of John’s years of study and experience. He grew up working on dairy farms in rural upstate New York. Later, working in the Peace Corps, he helped small-scale farmers in the Philippines develop permanent cropping plans. Roxanne, who grew up in Bellingham, lends her expertise to the business’s bookkeeping, marketing, and grant writing.

In the early days, John and Roxanne moved chickens and sheep through the neglected hay fields to add vital nutrients to the soil while clearing overgrown vegetation. Long-term production plants like fruit trees and blueberry bushes were the first crops to take root. Corn, squash, and nitrogen-fixing beans followed, providing sellable produce while readying the fields for berry plants in the years to come. “When we first got started,” Roxanne explains, “there was no income coming in at all, so we had to be creative while establishing a longer-term plan.”

Another early introduction to the farm was an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system in the form of birds and predatory bugs. John and Roxanne built roughly 50 swallow nest boxes that still welcome generation after generation of hungry foragers. On the ground level, chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese remove unwanted vegetation and fallen fruit. Ladybugs were released yearly to round out the pest control crew. 

“The IPM system we have is probably the most elegant thing on the farm that you don’t ever actually notice,” Roxanne muses. “We’ve never had any major insect outbreaks because of this interesting and intricate system working along behind us.”

With an equally elegant design, the seven hoop houses John and Roxanne built provide off-season and exotic produce to complement their outdoor seasonal crops. Heat-storing cement raised beds and a goldfish pond maintain warmth in these structures without the use of electricity. Underneath, earth batteries store heat during the summer and release it in the winter.

The hoop houses allow SpringRain Farm to offer hot-weather crops like strawberries and cucumbers in late spring. Recently, citrus, including tangelos, kumquats, and blood oranges, has become another unique offering for the region. “It’s really a passion to provide high quality, nutritious food for our local community,” says Roxanne. “We focus on having stuff out-of-season so it doesn’t have to get trucked in from Mexico and California.”

Having a positive ecological impact is important to John and Roxanne. They have two solar arrays that generate 15-20% of the electricity used on the farm. Electric trucks are used to haul livestock feed and harvested produce.

“We’re fighting climate change as best we can through a lot of carbon sequestration,” Roxanne explains. This is accomplished by focusing on perennial crops and, more recently, establishing agroforestry systems. Mimicking a native forest, agroforestry involves a multi-tiered food production system from the canopy to the understory. It’s also a way of turning otherwise unfarmable, soggy soils into a productive landscape.

“We look at each of these units of land and talk about what could be done there that would be the most healthy and productive,” says John, “in terms of both ecological and commercial productivity.”

Diversifying their farm products has been a long-time strategy at SpringRain Farm. In addition to the array of produce, they provide organic eggs as well as poultry processed on-site in their WSDA-licensed facility. In SpringRain’s commercial kitchen, Roxanne uses any less-than-perfect or excess produce to create syrups, jams, sauces, salsa, and pesto.

All of these offerings are the result of John and Roxanne’s dedication to sustainability, adaptation, and local food security. Across the years, they have been assisted by interns, local volunteers, WWOOF volunteers, and now 3-8 employees throughout the season. This collective effort turned a once overgrown, neglected property into a model of regenerative agriculture designed with future generations in mind.

Customers can find SpringRain Farm and Orchard at the Port Townsend Farmers Market on Saturdays, April through December, and at the Ballard Farmers Market on Sundays. SpringRain’s farmstand is open seven days a week in Chimacum, where customers can pick up their goods and catch a glimpse of the bountiful ecosystem.

Holly Erickson of Jefferson County Farmers Markets presents an inside look at the people, histories, and passions behind the booths of our community’s vibrant marketplaces. A longer version of this story will be published at jcfmarkets.org/vendor-stories.